


ESCAPE: An Unofficial Sequel to Ready Player One

by spacedadvader



Category: Ready Player One (2018), Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Genre: 80s, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Epic Friendship, Evil Corporations, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gay Character, Gen, Lesbian Character, Major Original Character(s), Memes, OASIS (Ready Player One), Online Friendship, Online Romance, Online vs. Real Life, Original Character(s), Original Character-centric, Pansexual Character, Rock Stars, Romance, Stupidity, Unofficial Sequel, Video & Computer Games, Virtual Reality, Virtual Violence, pop culture references, rock music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-01-14 11:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 32,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18475630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacedadvader/pseuds/spacedadvader
Summary: The year is 2048, three years after the High Five took control over the OASIS and defeated Innovative Online Industries.Valerie Woods (Val for short) is your typical middle-class teenage girl, obsessed with the mid-2000s and sci-fi. She's kind of a nobody, really. But on the OASIS, she's a male rock star called Aelien. He's the lead vocalist and guitarist of a band of four called the Destiny Detonators, which is one of the most popular artists in the OASIS. Yeah, his band's famous. No biggie.But here's where stuff goes down: Aelien and the band are wandering in the ruins of Ludus I (that's another story) when they find something they never thought they'd see.A virus. With the IOI logo plastered all over it.Soon the four friends are swept up in a quest to rid the OASIS of IOI's tyranny, filled with action, violence, craziness, shenanigans, and maybe even a bit of romance.Enjoy your ESCAPE to the OASIS.





	1. PROLOGUE

In 2045, control over the OASIS was passed to a group of teenagers called the High Five, after its leader, Wade Watts (aka Parzival), completed the creator James Halliday's challenges. Innovative Online Industries (IOI) was also trying for control, but the company failed, and its creator, Nolan Sorrento, was put into prison for the attempted murder of Watts. However, his second in command, Marcus Smith, was not convicted, though he was involved. Smith was Sorrento's best friend growing up, so he desired revenge, as well as the money that IOI should have gotten.

It was then that Smith took control of what was left of IOI and created a plan.

He had their team of expert hackers create a virus that could be inserted into the OASIS directly, and would slowly erase all of its fundamental coding, destroying it. They called it a Black Hole. One of their agents snuck into Gregarious Games' headquarters and successfully inserted the virus into the coding of the OASIS.

If they couldn't have the OASIS, then no one should have it.

But apparently, Halliday put one hell of a firewall on the game, and though the virus was almost indestructible, it would take years to break through the firewall. So they shoved it into an unknown corner of the OASIS, where it would never be found... until it got through, that is.

The company continued to thrive, still manufacturing visors and haptics. People avoided buying from them for obvious reasons, but they also bought out several smaller companies in secret. And of course, the Oology Division was still there, too, but it was hidden. 

Smith was certain that IOI would succeed, and the event did have a very high chance of taking place. Sure, the repercussions would be terrible (he'd be put in jail, the company would disperse, etc.) but at least they'd have their revenge.


	2. ONE

I love music.

It's an essential part of my life. I wouldn't be able to live without playing my guitar every day and standing on a stage.

Well, not that I've ever actually done any of these things.

Let me start from the beginning. I live in a suburb of Orlando, Florida. My family is your average, middle-class group with a medium sized house in a mediocre neighborhood. I had a typical happy childhood, I love my parents, all that jazz. I love mid-2000s rock music, I'm a reader, my favorite movie is Blade Runner,  _ et cetera _ . I'm not very interesting.

However, my parents are some of those people who think that the OASIS is "contaminating" the minds of the youngest generation, a.k.a. me, so they never let me go on it as a kid. So of course, being the rebellious teen I am, I went out, got a job at a convenience store, and as soon as I saved enough money, I bought a visor for myself. I got a bunch of other stuff too, and I keep it all in an abandoned gas station that I claimed for my own.

Oh yeah, and my name's Val. Valerie Athena Woods is my full name, but Valerie does get kind of tedious after a while.

But on the OASIS, I'm a totally different person. I tried my best to make my avatar completely different from how I am in real life, just in case my parents ever go on there and find me.

My username is Aelien. It's pronounced like the word  _ alien. _ My avatar is a six-foot-tall guy, with shaggy, bright purple hair, and dark blue eyes. In real life, I'm a five-foot-two girl with long brown hair and brown eyes. I love the OASIS's avatar options.

Now back to the beginning. I think you've probably figured out why I said I'd never actually played guitar and stood on a stage before, and that's because I only do it in the OASIS. Me and my four friends, Zer0 (pronounced "zero"), Illvsion (pronounced "illusion"), and 9lives (pronounced "nine lives") are in a band called the Destiny Detonators. I'm the vocalist/rhythm guitar, 9lives is the lead guitarist, Illvsion plays bass, and Zer0 does drums. And apparently, we're famous. Our song _ Waterfell _ is number one on the Top Hits chart in rock right now.

Yeah... let's just hope my parents don't find out about any of this. I do use a voice modifier though, so they'd never recognize my singing. Imagine that— "Honey, we're home! We heard your band's song on the radio and found out you've been using the OASIS without our permission!" Yeah, it probably wouldn't go like that, but whatever.

Tonight, the Detonators and I are going to a giant amphitheater on the planet Incipio to do a show. We'd done a ton of rehearsals in our studio since we booked it, and we'd organized the setlist for weeks on end until it was perfect. We really just came upon this fame thing, so this really hyped us up. Incipio is the one planet that everyone on the OASIS can access no matter how much money they have, so literally  _ everyone _ will be there!

After I get home from school (it's one of the last ones that are in real life that are still functioning) I don't hesitate to tell my parents "I'm going out," and bike over to my station.

It's only a couple of miles from my neighborhood, so I'm pretty much set. I've got a ton of cool stuff. I have one of those omnidirectional treadmill thingies, one of those full-body suits that let you feel what's going on in the OASIS, and one of the highest-quality visors out there.

So I gear up, and I hop in.

I pop into the band's studio, where the other three are already waiting. They seem to just be chilling, sitting on our sofa.

Illvsion notices me first. "There he is! Ae, where have you been?" She jogs over and we exchange a hug. I've known her for about a year longer than I've known the other two, and she's my best friend. Her avatar looks really cool. Her hair is almost fiber-optic looking, and it floats as if she's in water.

"Oh, you know how real life gets, V," I tell her, the sound of my own distorted voice comforting me.

"Look who it is!" Zer0 pipes up from her spot, grinning. She's probably the coolest out of all of us, and yet still the nerdiest. She changes her hair color about once a month, and she's the best drummer I know of.

"We're ready to go, Ae," 9lives informs, his lynx ears swiveling in annoyance. He has a huge cat aesthetic, so he has cat ears and a tail. He's kinda a father figure to us, being the oldest.

I smirk at him. "You're such a stick in the mud sometimes, Nine. Loosen up!" I open my inventory and pull out a miniaturized version of my favorite vehicle. I toss it on the floor, and it grows into a replica of the TARDIS from the sci-fi show  _ Doctor Who _ . I snap my fingers, and the doors open.

"Really, Ae?" V complains. "We are not going in that." She's really shy and hates standing out, which explains why she opted for the bass.

"Hell yeah, we are!" Zer0 jumps up, pulls her drum kit into her inventory, and runs into the TARDIS, yelling "Allons-y!"

V sighs. "I'm never gonna be able to control you guys, am I?"

"Welcome to my life," Nine says, grabbing his guitar and walking into the ship.

V and I followed them into the bigger-on-the-inside spaceship, and I maneuvered the TARDIS toward the amphitheater and landed when I thought we were backstage.

"Right then!" I said, happily walking to the doors. "We’re only a tiny bit late, and we should be able to just walk on—"

I found myself looking at a sea of avatars, all cheering.

"It seems we've landed on the stage, not behind it," said Nine, matter-of-factly.

In real life, I have a terrible case of stage fright. That's what makes only singing in the OASIS even better: no one has ever really heard me sing. And it's different performing online, obviously, because none of it is real and it's not me they're seeing.

I find myself grinning, running out onto the front of the stage, and pulling a mic out of my inventory.

"Well then," I say, "What up?" I make a peace sign with my hand. The crowd cheers. "That landing was actually not intended, but we're here now, so let's go for it, shall we?" The crowd yells in affirmation. "We're the Destiny Detonators, and this is  _ Waterfell _ !"

And with that, Zer0 taps out a  _ 1, 2, 3, 4 _ on her drumsticks, and we launch straight into  _ Waterfell. _

The song is about a couple, and the sadness that one of them feels when the other dies suddenly. I don't know why it was this song that made the charts out of all the others on our album, but I don't conntrol what people listen to. 

We play a couple of our other original songs, then do a cover of  _ Feel Good Inc. _ by Gorillaz,  _ Bohemian Rhapsody  _ by Queen, and  _ The Kill (Bury Me) _ by Thirty Seconds to Mars. We end with an elongated version of our very first single,  _ 3veryone 3lse _ , after which I thank the audience for tuning in, "We love you all," etc., all of which I mean wholeheartedly.

Then we take our bows, I put the TARDIS into my inventory, and we all run offstage.

"Dude, that was awesome!" Zer0 says, high-fiving me.

"Where'd you learn to scream like that, man?" Nine asks, grinning.

"A little trade secret," I tell him, winking. In reality, I can’t scream for shit, but my modifier makes my extremely high-pitched shrieking sound like decent metal screaming.

"Your vocals on  _ The Kill _ were amazing, Ae," V says. She hugs me, and I can't help but notice that our avatars' bodies fit together perfectly, like couples' do in romance books.  _ Wait, why did that just pop into my head? That’s weird. _

"Are you kidding? Your bassline on  _ Feel Good Inc. _ was so badass!" I say, hugging her back.

"Let's cut the pleasantries," a monotone voice says from behind us. It's our manager, a business AI called Δ or Delta.

"Oh, would ya lighten up, Del?" Zer0 groans. "Have a little fun!"

"Fun is not in my programming," Delta says, sounding annoyed.

"But having a stick up your ass is?" V snickers.

"Do you want the coin or not?" Delta says, fully exasperated. He pulls a box out of his inventory and opens it.

I sigh, and we all open our inventories and let them collect the coin that people paid to come to the show. This coin is different from normal OASIS coin because it's actually real money that people paid to see the show. This is how I could afford my OASIS gear without having to go to work.

Delta walks (well, hovers) away without another word.

"What a jackass," V says.

Suddenly, I hear a small beeping coming from outside the OASIS. I lift my visor slightly and see that it's 8:00 on my watch. I don't want to go home, but I have to be home by 8:30 if I don't want my parents to get suspicious.

I pull my visor back down and address my friends. "I've got to log out," I tell them.

"Ok," Zer0 says. "See ya, Ae!"

"Bye Ae," Nine says, waving.

"So long, my guy," V smiles.

I take off my visor completely and switch it off. I hate leaving the OASIS. It's really the only place I have friends.


	3. TWO

I bike home quickly, still reeling from the performance, and arrive at my house at 8:26 on the dot.

"I'm home!" I yell to whoever's in the house, run to my bedroom, and close the door. I might as well get my homework done while I have the chance. I grab a single notebook from my desk, in which my assignments are written down, and start working.

Real life school is weird. There are only about 150 people in the whole three-story, 100-classroom school. No one uses computers or cell phones since the OASIS, so everything's done on paper and in textbooks. It's kinda sad when you think about it: there are millions of children in the U.S., but only about 75,000 of them don't go to school in the OASIS. You can imagine how hard that is for me. I don't have any friends in real life. I wouldn't have any friends  _ at all _ if I hadn't gone on the OASIS.

"Val!" my mom's voice calls. "Come get some dinner!"

"I'm doing homework!" I yell back.

"Tomorrow's Saturday! Just do it then!"

_ Oh yeah, today's Friday. Whoop dee doo.  _ It's even harder for me to get out of the house on weekends because I don't usually have an excuse prepared.

But I go downstairs anyway.

See, here's the thing about my parents: they constantly have to know what I'm doing. They grill me for information every day as to what I did from 4:00-8:30. So here's what I tell them. I apparently have a best friend named Vera, who I hang out with after school. I based her off of my best friend on the OASIS, Illvsion. I still refer to her as V. Technically I'm not lying, because I do hang out with V after school, just not in real life.

"Hey Val," my mom greets me while making dinner of some sort. Her name is Shannon. She was the one that made the decision to cut me off from the rest of the human race, but she had good intentions. She works really hard to make sure I still have a good life.

"Hi Mom," I say, giving her a hug.

"I found something today that I thought you might like," she says, handing me her ancient iPhone. A video is pulled up. "This is a band on the OASIS. I heard their song on the radio today."

My heart begins to beat faster as I realize exactly what she's talking about. I press play on the video and am greeted with none other than a recording of my band playing  _ Waterfell  _ this afternoon.

_ Well, at least that means she hasn't recognized my voice. _

I hide my reaction and listen with a façade of interest. "What're they called?"

"I can't remember. Something... Detonators?"

I suppress a laugh at the fact that she's talking about  _ my band _ , and she has no idea! "Yeah, they're pretty good. I'll look them up."

"That doesn't mean going on the OASIS and looking them up, does it?"

"Of course not."

"Good. I know you wouldn't do that." Mom smiles.

I do feel kind of guilty about lying to her, even though I know my life wouldn't be that great without it. She does have good intentions, which really makes it hard.

My stepdad, Brian, is way stricter than my mom. He writes articles for the OASIS newsfeeds, which is really ironic because he's against its entire existence. He says that "the OASIS provides a distraction from the world's problems and prevents anyone from creating solutions," which is pretty much true, but that's just how the human race works. He's actually a decent person, so my description might be a bit misleading.

We all eat dinner together in silence, except for the usual questions about how everyone's day was.

"What did you and V do today, Val?" My mom asks.

"Just hung out at the mall a bit."

"Why haven't we met her yet?" My stepdad asks.

"She has school too, you know," I say. "It's on the OASIS, though, so her hours are different."

This is an everyday thing, really.

Afterwards, I run up to my room to do my homework, which is mostly useless math problems. Then I watch an episode of  _ Doctor Who _ from my box sets (Season 4, episode 2,  _ The Fires of Pompeii _ ), then go to bed.

The next day starts out just like normal. My decades-old iPhone doesn't wake me up at 7:30, due to the fact that it's a weekend, so I wake up at around 10. I read a couple more chapters of my favorite book,  _ Blade Runner: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? _ (I'm on my seventh reread), then I run downstairs, have some cereal, and leave. I tell my mom that V invited me to a  _ Star Wars _ marathon at her house, hop on my bike and ride out.

I get to my station, gear up, and hop in like I always do, but then I notice that something's wrong.

I materialize in the Detonators' studio and expect to be greeted by my friends, but there's no one there.

I walk around a bit, looking, to no avail. So I check my messages. There is a video message for me there. It shows V sitting in a chair, seemingly alone. Then another avatar appears behind her. He is shrouded in darkness, but I can clearly see him press a gun to her temple.

_ "Hello, Aelien. I would like to bargain with you. If you value your friends' lives, you'll do as I say. I expect to see you soon." _

_ Oh shit. Not now, not today. _

The message had coordinates attached to it. I enter them into my OASIS atlas and see that they are on Ludus I, the original location of all of the OASIS's schools, which has been abandoned since the Egg was found. I'm confused until I realize that because it's abandoned, it's the perfect place to hide someone you've kidnapped. 

_ But why? _

I grab my TARDIS from my inventory and run into it. I set a course for Ludus, and I take off.

The TARDIS is awesome in general. It's an artifact, which means it's one of a kind in the whole game. It's the only ship that's able to teleport from one planet to another without having to pay for it. It also takes a hell of a long time to learn how to fly it, so really, I'm the only person who knows how. And it looks cool, which is a bonus. If you don't already know what a TARDIS looks like, it's basically a giant blue phone booth from 1960s Britain. If someone then saw a criminal, they could grab him and shove him in the box, then use the phone to call the police. In the show, it's bigger on the inside and a time machine, as well as a spaceship. It doesn't travel in time in the OASIS, but it's still pretty OP.

I set the TARDIS down on the planet after a bit of a rough flight. I had the option to change that, but it's accurate to the show, so I didn't. I check my inventory for all of my weapons, and they're all there. I peek out of the door tentatively and see one of the many abandoned schools that cover the planet. "Okay, let's figure this out," I mutter to myself, pulling up my communications again. I try to contact V, but I can't get a signal. 

"Oh my god," I curse, starting to panic. I run a hand through my hair (virtually and physically) trying to make myself think. "They could get hurt, they could zero out, they could be being used for information, they could get hurt in real life...  _ oh shit _ ..." I lean on the outside of the TARDIS and slide down it until I'm sitting on the ground.

I try to force myself to calm down and analyze my options.  _ I need to just breathe… they’re probably okay, that guy might have been bluffing.  _

The coordinates point me towards one of the large forests in between the schools. I land in that general area and start wandering around. I put on some music on in one side of my headphones, and look around for any hints. Just in case, I take out my favorite weapon, a replica of the ray guns from My Chemical Romance's concept album,  _ Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. _

I walk around for a while, but then I begin to hear a smooth buzzing sound. I pause my music and follow the sound around a corner.

What I see is a giant black mass in the corner of a small cave. I get closer. The mass is really large, and on its edges are a fuzzy green... substance. I start to make out something in the green edge, but I am interrupted by a piercing shriek.

_ V! _


	4. THREE

I run towards the sound, trying not to panic. It leads me through the forest to an abandoned-looking building whose doors are padlocked. I shoot the lock with my gun and kick the door in.

I emerge into a dark room with one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. There are three chairs in the center, two of which are occupied by Nine and Zer0, who are tied up.

And V is nowhere to be seen.

"Ae! Thank god!" Zer0 gasps.

"What the hell is going on?" I ask them, moving to get Nine free.

"V zeroed out," Nine says, his voice raspy. "This scary-lookin' dude said we were bait for you, and asked her for information about you, and when she wouldn't say anything he zeroed her."

"Shit," I curse. "What does he want me for?"

"Well," a low, smooth voice says behind me. "I guess I'll just have to tell you."

I turn and find myself looking at the weirdest and scariest avatar I've ever seen. He's over ten feet tall and muscular as hell, and his skin looks gray and dead. His eyes are completely black and seem to be looking straight into my soul. "If either of you makes a sound," he gestures to my friends, "I'll zero you out."

I tense up, and try to be confident when I stand and say, "Who are you and what are your intentions?"

The guy chuckles. "I can't exactly answer the first one," he says, "But now that you're here I can explain the latter." He begins to pace the room. "You are the leader of the most popular and the most valuable music group on the OASIS. You make a lot of coin, correct?"

"What's it to you?"

"I think you're smart enough to figure it out, Aelien. That's why I brought you here!"

I'm getting confused, as well as scared. "If you wanted coin, why didn't you just zero them out? We all get equal pay."

"That's just a one-time deal though," he says. "I'm going to make a deal with you. I will let your friends go if  _ and only if _ you agree to give me 45 percent of all of your band's income."

I really don't want to say anything rash, but I do anyways. "And what if I don't?"

"I zero all of you out and get your stuff anyways. Either way, I get something out of it, so what'll it be?"

_ I need to make a plan to get us out of here without agreeing to this guy _ . I begin to stall. "Why'd you zero Illvsion out?"

"You were taking a long time," he says as if this explains everything. "I asked which of them knew you best, and she spoke up, so I asked where you were, and she wouldn't tell me, so I figured her useless."

"She didn't tell you because she didn't know," I say angrily. "I never tell anyone in here anything about real life."  _ I can't just pull out my gun, he'd shoot me. _

"Then how did she know you best?" he laughs.

_ I need to hide the fact that I have my gun out then... but how?  _ "I've known her for a lot longer than the others," I tell him.

"Then she only knows your avatar," he continues. "For all she and your friends know, you could be a 300 pound, 40-year-old man!"

_ Oh, if only he knew, _ I laugh internally.  _ Wait, _ I realized, _ I have one of those thingies that freeze your avatar but let you move around! An emotional inhibitor! It's in my pocket! _ "Maybe, but I don't lie about my personality. I am who I am." I slowly inch my hand to the pocket of my pants and feel for the little remote. I find it and flip the switch.

"But it matters," he smirks. "Your friends might not even be your friends if you had met them in real life."

I pull my gun out of my virtual coat pocket, which he doesn't see. "What matters is that they're my friends now." I raise the gun and aim it at the spot between his eyes. "And I sure as hell am going to protect them." I swiftly switch the remote off and pull the trigger.

See, the great thing about ray guns is that there's no kickback.

So I got to see this dude dissolve into coin real-time.

Three guards appear from the corners of the room and come at me. I shoot one of them, but the other two keep coming. The first one comes from behind me, so I elbow him in the face to hold him off. The second one is kind of short, so I use my height to an advantage (something I don't get to do in real life) and put her in a choke hold and shoot her in the head. The first one comes back and aims a punch to my face, but as he does it, I grab his arm and twist it, then kick him in the balls. As he falls over in pain I shoot him.

_ Hell yeah. _

My friends still sat in their chairs, both of their jaws agape.

"Dude," Zer0 says, incredulous, "you are so badass! How the hell did you do that?"

"I used to take self-defense classes," I say, smirking. This is true. I used to have to walk through the Baltimore stacks to get to school, and my parents wanted me to be able to defend myself if I were to get jumped. I moved to another state later on, but I still practice every now and then. I go to Nine's chair and start untying him.

"Thanks for saving our asses, Ae," he says gratefully, standing up when I finish untying him.

"Yeah dude, we probably would have all zeroed out if not for you." Zer0 laughs. "The day when Zer0 zeroes is the day when hell freezes over," she mutters to herself, smirking.

"No problem," I say, moving to Zer0. "Y'all are my friends. Of course I'd come for you."

"V must have respawned by now," Nine says. "We should go get her."

I grab a sub-inventory box from my inventory and put all of the coin and items from the leader into it. "V should have this. All her stuff is in here anyways, and he zeroed her, so she deserves it."

"Let's split the rest," Zer0 says. We all collect the guards' items.

We get back into the TARDIS and travel to Incipio, the planet where all new avatars start from. It doesn't take long to find V after we all shout for her and she responds with a "Shut up, I'm over here!"

We run to where her voice came from, and find her leaning against a wall. Her avatar's face looks the same, but instead of her floating, fiber-optic hair, it's black and wavy, and she wears the default black t-shirt and jeans. "Oh, thank god! I knew you'd come for us, Ae!" she says, hugging me.

"It's no problem," I say. "I got your stuff."

"Good!" she says, holding her hand out jokingly. "Gimme my fiber-optics!"

I get the small box from my inventory and hand it to her. "I got all of the bad guy's shit too. It's in there."

"Awesome! Thanks." She collects the stuff in the box, then sees Nine and Zer0. "Are you guys okay? Did they hurt you too?"

"Nah, we're fine," Nine tells her. Zer0 winks.

"Hey, guys," I say, remembering what I saw earlier. "I saw something weird back on Ludus. I wanna go back and check it out."

"Really?" Zer0 asks. "What'd you see?"

"I have no idea what it was, but it looked bad."

"Okay, but let's stop by the studio first," V says. "I wanna get my stuff back on."

Nine nods. "That's probably the best idea."

We go back to where the TARDIS was parked and log into our private chat. We chill there for a while. Nine and Zer0 tell me everything that the dude that captured them said, but none of it surprises me. Once V's appearance is to her liking, we take off again back to Ludus. I lead the group to where I remember the black mass to be, inside a cave.

"Over there," I tell them, pointing.

"What the hell is that thing?" Zer0 asks.

"I don't know. That's why we're here. I saw it while I was looking for you guys."

We all get closer to it. I notice then that it has gotten a bit bigger since I last saw it.

"It's green on the edges," Nine says, looking closer. "Wait," he leans in, looking even more directly at the edge. "It looks like it's dissolving the rock!"

I look closer and see that it does look like that. Little green flecks—no, ones and zeroes—seemed to be falling into the mass.  _ It's not a mass, _ I realize,  _ It's a hole. _

"It's a hole," V says, voicing my thoughts. "It's dissolving the wall's code."

"Why would there be a hole in the code?" I say.

"It could be a virus," Nine says worriedly. "But the OASIS is too big for one virus to just dissolve it, right? Maybe it's just destroying Ludus."

"No," Zer0 contradicts. "If someone wanted to get rid of Ludus, why would they do it like this instead of just asking Parzival to delete it? It’s not necessary anymore after the contest."

"I think it's bigger than that," V says thoughtfully. "I think someone is trying to destroy the OASIS completely."


	5. FOUR

"Who the  _hell_  would want to destroy the whole OASIS?" Zer0 asks, clearly getting angry.

"I have no idea," V says, "but that seems like the likeliest thing."

"Is there anyone that hates the OASIS that much?" Nine says.

"No, everyone loves it," I tell him. "Wait, maybe it has something to do with what happened with the Egg in '45! Some people are probably still really mad about all of that."

"IOI," Nine says. "If we think it's about that, no one was angrier about it than IOI. No one wanted the Egg more, and the gunters took it right out of their hands..."

"...So they want revenge," I finish. "Of course! They want revenge on the gunters, and they know that the OASIS is out of their hands, so they want to destroy it!"

"Of course they do," V sighs. "How the hell did it get through that firewall though? Halliday put a practically impenetrable one on here—"

"The key word there is 'practically'," Zer0 jumps in. "We know IOI has a team of experts, they could have all just sat down and coded this thing to break anything."

"And that's why it took so long for it to show up," Nine adds. "It took them three years, but they've done it."

"We need to contact Parzival," I tell my friends. "He needs to know that this is going down."

"But how?" Nine queries. "He probably gets a ton of messages from fans every day, he'd probably just ignore one from any of us."

"But it's  _us_ ," Zer0 pipes up. "We're  _famous_. Even if he doesn't know who we are, he must have at least heard our song by now."

"If we use our fame to get stuff, we basically become total assholes," I say.

"Well yeah," V agrees. "Maybe we should all meet up and go to GSS headquarters and talk to him in person."

"No," I say, then instantly regret it.

"Why not?"

"I... uh," I struggle to find an answer other than  _I've been lying to you all about who I am for two years and I'm actually a girl but I wouldn't be able to go anyways because my parents would find out that I'm on the OASIS and I'm not allowed to be._

"There's no guarantee that we'd be able to meet," Zer0 says, and I stifle a sigh of relief. "We could be scattered all over the globe."

"True," V acknowledges. "Okay, we'll just have to bombard him with PM's, then. That seems like our only option."

Suddenly, a vibration comes from my pocket. It's my phone. "Hold on for a second," I tell the group, and lift my visor. My mom is calling me.

"Hello?"

_"Hey, Val! Are you and V doing anything important?"_

_Yes, actually._  "No, not really."

_"Would you mind coming home? We were planning to go to Disney and forgot to tell you!"_

_Really? They chose_ today _to do that?_  "Uh... sure, I guess. I'm on my way." I lower my visor again. "I've gotta go."

"Why?" V says.

"Duty calls," I tell her, winking.

"Damn!" Zer0 says. "You're our leader, man! We need you right now!"

"Well, apparently, so does real life." I sigh, wave, and remove my visor, logging out.

I bike back to my house, where my parents are already waiting.

"There you are, Val!" My mom hugs me. "We're just about ready. Let's go!"

We all get in our car and leave our driveway.

The suburbs of Orlando, Florida used to be one of the fastest-growing places in the world. The stacks out here were one of the biggest in the country. So many people moved here because they could get jobs at Walt Disney World and Universal Studios, and they could avoid the cold weather in the north. That is, until the earth started warming up. It got so hot down here that anyone who couldn't afford air conditioning (which was the vast majority) had to move northwards. Then the OASIS came along, and less and less people came to Disney World and the other attractions, and it became much harder to get people down here. All that was left were the middle class who only stayed because they'd bought a house that they couldn't afford to sell and the people who could still afford air conditioning. The stacks were torn down, and all of the buildings that came with it were abandoned, including the gas station that became my second home. As for Disney, they started a new campaign. Instead of going to the theme parks in real life, you could go in the OASIS for the same fee. The only people who actually go anymore are people who don't use the OASIS, the usual crowd made up of nostalgia-hungry Gen Z'ers in their 30's, and the few leftover workers, who are usually teenagers trying to make a buck before high school graduation.

I generally enjoy going, when it isn't too hot. I used to go all the time when I was a kid, and it was absolutely amazing. The rides are still pretty awesome, even though they're all in VR and we have to wear visors while riding them.

We walk around Magic Kingdom for a while, then as the evening comes in we go to Hollywood Studios (my favorite park) to watch a lightshow. It's my favorite because of Galaxy's Edge, the giant  _Star Wars_  themed section of the park. I love  _Star Wars_. I love sci-fi in general, but  _Star Wars_ never ceases to come out on top.

We finish a simulated Millenium Falcon flight, then walk around for a while more.

I look to my right and see a dude sitting on a bench, messing with an ancient Walkman. He has a hoodie on with the hood over his head, and he's wearing sunglasses, but for some reason, he looks familiar to me. Then I realize where I'd seen him before, and I almost lose my shit right then and there.

"Mom," I whisper excitedly, "That's Wade Watts. Parzival. Over there."

"Wait, really? That's the dude who won the OASIS contest, right?" I nod, and she looks in the direction that I'm looking and spots him too. "Whoa, that's so cool! You should go and get a picture with him to show to V."

I had a different goal in mind, but I tell her that I will, and start walking towards him. I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous. I generally don't like talking to people, but it made it worse that he was a celebrity, and he probably hated being noticed by fans, hence the hoodie and sunglasses. But I had a mission.

"Uh," I start awkwardly, "Sir, you're Wade Watts, right?"

He looks up, his face blank. He takes off his sunglasses. "Last time I checked."

I couldn't help fangirling a bit, but I didn't show it. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

He sighs. "Sure, kid. What can I do for you?"

"It's kind of a long story, actually." I decide to start with who I am. I know I'll probably regret it later, but it's kind of all I have. "Have you heard of a band called the Destiny Detonators?" I suddenly become conscious of my high voice. Whenever I say that name, I'm usually embodying Aelien, standing on a stage.

"Actually, yeah, I have," he says. "I've been to a couple of their shows. I love their music."

 _Wait. What?!_ I try not to scream. "Uh, well, would you believe me if I told you I was the lead singer, Aelien?"

He looks at me, a bit confused. "Wow, never heard that one before. You say you're Aelien?"

"I am, actually."

He pauses for a moment. "Honestly, I've learned not to question people's differences to their avatars. But if you really are Aelien, there is one thing I have to say." He takes a deep breath, then grins at me. "Dude, you are a literal vocal  _god!_  I loved your cover of  _Bohemian Rhapsody_. I cannot stress enough how much I love you guys' music!"

 _Holy shit. Holy. Actual. Shit._ "Wow, thanks, Mr. Watts!" I smile back.

"Call me Wade," he says, holding his hand out. "What's your name?"

"Val. Val Woods." I shake his hand. We're both grinning like maniacs. "So anyway, I actually have something to tell you. I was just going to PM you, but here you are, so I figured I'd say hi. Anyways, I was on Ludus I rescuing my friends from a gang." He gives me a confused look, and I pause. "Long story, but not really the point. I found this thing in a cave, and when we all looked at it together, we realized that it's a virus."

"Wait, a virus?" Wade looks even more confused. "How the hell? Are you sure?"

"It's the only thing it could be," I tell him. "It looked like it was dissolving the code of the cave around it. It's literally a hole in the game."

"That's impossible."

"Apparently not," I say. "We talked more about it, and we came to the conclusion that..." I take a breath, "IOI put it there."

"IOI?" He looks at me with disbelief. "No. They disbanded years ago, or at least the Sixers did."

"They disbanded long enough ago for a virus to have broken through the OASIS's firewall."

Wade considers this, then nods. "That makes a lot of sense. They probably wanted revenge." Then he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a smartphone that's much more advanced than mine, and frowns. "Hey listen, I've gotta go. Work stuff. But I'll PM you later. Respond as soon as you get it. I'll be there."

"Okay. Thanks, Mr. W—Wade, sorry."

He smiles. "No problem, Val."


	6. FIVE

The next day is Sunday. I can't help but want to wake up as soon as possible to see if Parzival—Wade—messaged me. And to tell my friends about it, obviously.

However, I still sleep in until noon. Great.

When I do wake up, it's to my mom knocking on my bedroom door. "Val," she says softly, "are you awake? It's noon."

I sit up slowly. "I am now," I say, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

She smiles and comes in, closing the door behind her. She sits on my bed next to me. "Hey, are you alright?"

"What do you mean?"

"After you met that guy, Wade Watts, yesterday, you've seemed kind of... out of it. Like you're in another world. Is there anything going on? Did he say something bad to you?"

 _In another world_ , I think.  _If only you knew._  "No, nothing's wrong. He was really nice."

"Good." She leans over and kisses my forehead. "Are you going out with V today?"

"Yeah."

"Okay." She stands up and moves towards my bedroom door. "I love you."

"Love you too," I tell her, smiling.

I really do love my mom. I mentioned how guilty I am lying to her, right? Well, whatever I said, I feel like that times 100 now. I feel like the worst person in the world. She loves me and cares for me, and what do I do? I turn right around and lie to her about my whole life.

But that's not going to stop me today. Not when a whole world is at stake.

I hop up, dress quickly, and am soon on my bike and at my station.

As soon as I gear up, I spot a message. As expected, it's from Parzival, and he sent it at midnight last night. I respond as fast as I can.

Parzival:  _Hey, Aelien. Or do you want me to call you Val?_

Aelien:  _hi! i apologize for the wait_

Aelien:  _and plz call me aelien or ae on here_

Parzival:  _It's ok, I understand humans need sleep._

Parzival: _So what's going on with this thing? Have you told your friends about our conversation yet?_

Aelien:  _i haven't had the chance yet, did u tell ur crew_

Parzival:  _Yeah, they're pretty eager to figure all of this out._

Aelien: _maybe we could meet up on ludus later_

Parzival:  _That's probably gonna have to happen..._

Parzival:  _Just the two of us though, I wanna stay as incognito as possible._

Aelien:  _that's fine_

Parzival:  _By the way, do your friends know you're a girl?_

Aelien:  _ur the only person on earth who knows_

Aelien: _don't say a word i s2g_

Parzival:  _Don't worry, I won't._

Parzival:  _And, what's with the lowercase letters?_

Aelien:  _it's kinda my thing_

Parzival:  _Ok then, LOL!_

Parzival:  _On my way to Ludus now._

Aelien:  _cool see u then_

 _Did he really just capitalize "lol"?_  I think, laughing. Then I log in completely and travel to Ludus.

I find the cave where the virus is, and see a figure already standing inside. All I can see of the person is a black cloak. My heart rate increases. I know I shouldn't be this starstruck about meeting him; I was never involved in gunter affairs. But he had single-handedly made his way through all three gates and challenges (except the last gate, no one could get through that on their own. I know, I read his book about it) and defeated IOI. And he's the most famous person alive, except for Halliday himself. Our band can't even come close.

I walk over and stand next to him. He looks over at me, takes his hood off, and smiles. I instantly recognize the shaggy half-silver half-blue hair and the geometric-looking tattoos.

"Aelien! You made it!" Parzival says, grinning. "Nice coat, by the way. Deckard would be proud."

"Hey," I smile back. "Yeah,  _Blade Runner_ is my favorite movie. And my favorite book, for that matter!" My avatar is, in fact, wearing the trench coat worn by the main character of Blade Runner, but it's dark grey instead of tan. I'm just surprised he recognized it! "By the way, what do I call you on here?"

"Z works," he says. "Anyways, this is definitely a hole in the game. The code is actually being dissolved."

"It looks bigger since the last time I was here," I notice. "It has been every time."

"And you're sure it's IOI?"

"No," I tell him, "but it's the most likely conclusion. Who else would want revenge this badly?"

"True," he considers, with the same facial expression that he had in real life. "They did tend to be very good with computers. If anyone was able to make something that could destroy the code of the OASIS completely, it's them."

We stand in silence for a moment, watching the tiny green ones and zeroes fall into the void of the virus.

"Nice voice mod you've got there," Z says. "I wouldn't be able to tell that this isn't your real voice at all."

"Thanks," I reply, "That's kinda the point."

"Why don't you want anyone to know who you are? Well, your gender, I mean, and your appearance. You look completely different here."

So I tell him. I know I can't trust him  _completely_  yet, but he is the only person alive who knows who I am in the real world, so the cat's pretty much out of the bag already.

"So you're here in secret?" Z asks. "Where do your parents think you are?"

"With my friend V," I tell him. "It's actually short for Illvsion, with a 'v' instead of a 'u'. She's the bassist in our band, as well as my best friend, so it technically isn't a lie."

"Yeah, I know about Illvsion," he replies. "Have I told you how much I love you guys' music?"

I laugh. "Yeah, you have."

"Oh, okay, well I still do," he says, grinning. "Didn't you guys cover  _Tom Sawyer_  by Rush at one point?"

"Oh, now I know you're a real fan," I smile. "That was years ago, with our first album!"

"Hell yeah I'm a real fan," he says, laughing. "I actually know the guitar solo on  _3veryone 3lse_ by heart. I play it all the time!"

"Oh yeah, I forgot you played! You had to play  _Discovery_  to get through the second gate."

"You read my book?"

"Of course I read your book! Everyone's read your book!"

"Oh yeah," he chuckles. "You know, every once in a while, I forget how famous I am. I probably shouldn't have even gone to Disney World yesterday, but I hadn't been there in a while and I needed my  _Star Wars_ fix, you know? But right after I had to leave you, the paparazzi found me and practically had me in a chokehold. It's the same thing on the OASIS. Every time I go somewhere and my avatar isn't disguised, the same thing happens. But occasionally, I'll be hanging out with Arty, Aech, and Shoto, and it'll be just like old times. We'll be playing some FPS game, or having a Marvel marathon, and I'll just forget that anything with the Egg or IOI even happened. It's unbelievable how far I've gone."

 _Wow._  "At least fame hasn't changed you," I say. "A lot of celebrities turn into total assholes."

"Oh yeah, no," he laughs. "At least I hope not. Nothing's happened to you, either. You seem pretty cool."

"Well, we've only been 'famous' since our record came out. It still hasn't really sunk in yet.  _Waterfell_ went up the charts so fast, we weren't even sure what was happening. I still don't  _feel_  famous. I just feel like the same old Ae. Well, Val, but I'm not Val on here."

"You know what?" Z grins at me. "I think we're gonna be pretty good friends." Then something beeps. "Hold on, I'm getting a call." He pulls up his communications. "It's Art3mis. Do you mind if I answer?"

"Nah, go ahead."

He clicks his answer button, and Art3mis's avatar appears on the holographic screen in front of him. "Hey Arty!"

_"Hi Z! Hey, are you on Ludus?"_

"Yeah I am, and check out who I'm with!" He turns his screen to face me. I was not expecting this, but I play it cool and wave.

Art3mis's face lights up.  _"Is that Aelien? Oh my god, the Detonators are my favorite band! I was at your show on Incipio the other day, you guys were awesome!"_

"Thanks," I say, smiling. It never fails to make me happy when someone says that they like our music.

_"Anyway, Z, we've got some business going on back at the HQ, and we need you to weigh in. Do you mind? I know there's some crazy stuff going on over there."_

"No, it's okay," he says, then turns to me. "Sorry to bail on you, Ae."

"It's no problem," I say. I should probably go see the rest of the group anyways. They're probably expecting me.

"Okay, cool. See you later, Ae!"

"Bye Z!"

And then he disappears.

I look back at the virus and make sure nothing weird has happened to it (other than its existence) then I enter our studio chat.

V and Nine are already sitting on our couch watching  _Alien_. It's kind of coincidental that I appear in the room just as the alien makes its entrance through someone's chest.

V sees that I arrived, and yells, "Oh no, it's the alien! It's gonna kill us!"

I give a phony roar, and both of them laugh.

"Dude, where have you been?" Nine asks, scooting over on the couch to make room for me.

I plop down next to him. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," I say, a grin slowly taking over my face. "By the way, where's Zer0?"

"Sleeping," V says, rolling her eyes playfully.

"I figured." Whenever Zer0 was absent, she always said that she was sleeping.

"Anyways, tell us everything," Nine says eagerly.

I do as he says. I leave out my location and the conversations about my gender on purpose.

"...and now I'm here," I finish, and observe my friend's jaws, which are both on the floor.

"He actually listens to us?" Nine was freaking out. " _Parzival_  likes  _our_  music? And Art3mis does too? How? What?!"

"I can't believe you actually met him in real life," V is also very excited. "What was he like?"

"He was actually really cool," I tell them. "He told me I could call him Wade, and we had a serious conversation about the virus. Our real conversation happened on Ludus. We talked about music, and being famous, and Rush, and his book, and it was awesome! He called me Ae, and told me to call him Z, and everything!"

"Oh my god," Nine is seriously fanboying. "you are so lucky, man!"

"But guess what?" I say. This is going to blow their minds. "You'll get to meet him too!"

"Holy shit," V says. "To talk about the virus! Of course!"

"What's going on?" Zer0 appears in the room, her voice sounding groggy.

"Ae met Parzival!" Nine and V shout simultaneously.


	7. SIX

In my first years on the OASIS, I thought gunters were all insane.

I actually had reasoning behind this hypothesis, too. In the five years since Halliday died, no one had even gotten close to finding the Egg, or even the first key. And yet they still tried. I had a look at the first clue, and it seemed like another language to me. Something about a tomb of horrors... people said that it referred to Dungeons and Dragons, so I knew that I'd never be able to work it out. I'd never been much of a gamer, even with those kinds of RPGs. I was a musician, nothing else. Well, I was a nerd too, but not with games.

Then Parzival's name appeared on the scoreboard, and the whole thing changed. He opened up a giant can of worms, and things just went downhill from there. Then IOI came into the picture and made things way worse. I'm not going to recap the whole thing; you've probably either read the book that Wade wrote about it (entitled  _Ready Player One_ ) or heard about it through the grapevine. But in the midst of all of this, the Detonators formed. Illvsion and I started learning guitar and bass at the same time, and we decided to start a band, so we held auditions for a drummer and got Zer0, who brought 9lives (who was a gunter at the time) to be our lead guitar. We vowed to encourage the masses of gunters to power through IOI's tyranny and released our first album right before the battle for the third key. And eventually they did win, but we never knew that the High Five were actually listening to us.

Anyways, Nine and V finish their rant, which is very entertaining to me, but Zer0's expression remains blank and tired-looking. There is a moment of silence.

"Well?" Nine asks, clearly expecting a dramatic reaction. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

"Nah," Zer0 replies. "If Ae had met Josh Dun, then I'd be freaking out. But he didn't, and I'm not a gunter, so I really don't care." Josh Dun is the drummer in a band called Twenty One Pilots and her role model in life.

"Oh, I know," V rolls her eyes. "But come on! They're like,  _friends_  now! And Parzival is the most famous person in the world! And  _he listens to our music_!"

"That's pretty cool, actually," Zer0 admits, "but I'm not going to bow down to him like you three."

"Three?" I say, feigning offense. "You think I do that too?"

"Eh," she shrugs, "I guess it would depend on the circumstance. You'd try to hide it when you're talking to him, but you probably freaked out about it as soon as he left."

I feel myself blush under my visor. Fortunately, I turned off those sensor thingies a long time ago. I laugh and say, "Well... you're not wrong."

Simultaneously, Zer0 grins, Nine shouts "SAME", and V full-on points and laughs at me.

"I'm done with you guys!" I laugh. I love my friends.

Suddenly, a notification sounds, signaling that I have a new PM. "I gotta check this," I say, and I open my communications. It's from Parzival.

Parzival:  _Hey dude!_

Aelien:  _hi, what up_

Parzival:  _So we talked about the thing and we found a guy who says he can help us get rid of it._

Aelien:  _rlly? what's he called_

Parzival:  _Cyber_l0rd. We had no idea he existed before this but we looked him up and he's apparently pretty good..._

Aelien:  _ok cool_

Aelien:  _so r we all gonna meet up to talk or what? i can invite u to r chat_

Parzival:  _You actually don't need to invite me, I can go pretty much anywhere!_

Aelien:  _oh yeah ur op as hell! lol i forgot_

Parzival:  _Anyway, we should probably all meet up on Ludus, just to make sure._

Aelien:  _sounds alright, what time?_

Parzival:  _3pm OST sould be good._

Aelien:  _ok cool, we'll be there_

Parzival:  _See you then!_

Aelien:  _k bye!_

I close my communications to see my friends all staring at me. I laugh. "What?"

Nine grins. "That was Parzival, wasn't it?"

"Maybe..." I say with a smirk.

Zer0 rolls her eyes as Nine continues to fanboy. "What did he say?"

I take this opportunity to mess with him a bit. "Would you believe me if I told you that you're gonna get to meet him today?"

Nine's eyes widen, but he shakes his head.

V sees through my bullshit despite this. "Alright Ae, we know you two are friends now. We know you probably arranged to have our groups meet to talk about the virus, right?"

"Oh, shut up," I say jokingly.

"That's awesome!" Nine shouts.

"You are all insane," Zer0 says, laughing.

"We know," I tell her with a wink. "Anyways, he said that he found a hacker who should be able to help get rid of the virus."

"That's even more awesome!" Nine looks like he's about to faint.

V is grinning like a maniac. "We could literally save the whole OASIS!"

"Hell yeah, we could!" I yell. It is at this point that I know we are at a fork. Nothing can get better than it could for us, but it could also go worse than anything has ever been.

✨

The TARDIS lands on Ludus, right next to the cave where I know the virus to be. I look outside through the console screen and see that there are already four figures standing there. I instantly recognize one of them as Z and the other three as the rest of the High Five. I walk out of the ship, my friends behind me.

Z instantly greets me and introduces me to his crew. Art3mis says hi to me first and starts talking about our music (our first album, entitled  _Detonation_ , is her favorite, and her favorite song is a lesser known one called  _THE VOID_ ), but then she stops herself and apologizes for rambling. Aech seems really cool. He says "Yo, Ae!" and gives me a fist-bump. Shoto gives a quick bow, which I'm not sure how to respond to, so I bow as well. If you don't know already, then you're probably wondering why they're called the High Five if there's only four of them. The answer to that is that Daito, the fifth member, was killed by IOI in the later days of the contest. I still feel really bad for Shoto; the two of them were close enough to be brothers.

Here's the thing about Aech: he's actually a girl in real life. She created a male avatar for different reasons than I did, but I still think it's really cool that we have that in common. For the sake of this, though, I'll refer to him as  _he_.

I introduce my friends, and everyone starts mingling. Then I notice something about the virus. "It's gotten bigger again," I tell Z, who looks over at it, concerned.

"Yeah it has," he says. He walks over to it and crouches down, his robes pooling on the ground. "It seems to be growing faster every time."

I do the same. "I wouldn't be surprised," I remark, "It's gotten past the firewall now. Do you know any way we could get rid of it?"

"You know I'm good with computers, but even I have no idea what to do with this thing. In any other computer, once it's gotten this far, you would just throw it out. But obviously, we can't do that with the OASIS, everyone would hate us. Their entire lives revolve around this game; we've got to consider other options. That's why we got Cyber_l0rd." He pronounces the supposed hacker's username "cyber lord".

I'm still skeptical. "Are you sure we can trust him?"

Z sighs. "I think we're gonna have to."

Suddenly, I heard the sound of an engine. It seemed to be approaching.

"Uh, Ae?" V says warily, cutting off her conversation with Art3mis. "I think someone's coming. Did you invite anyone else?"

"Don't worry, kiddo," Aech reassures. "We called in a hacker to help us try and get rid of the virus. That's probably him."

The engine gets really loud, then stops. I hear Zer0 mutter "Holy Harley," which signals to me that this is probably some kind of classic Harley-Davidson motorcycle. She loves that kind of thing.

The bike's owner comes into the cave. He looks kind of menacing at first, with his mirrored aviators, black leather jacket, and spiky black hair, then I realize where I've seen his jacket before. It's identical to the one that Gerard Way wore in the music video for My Chemical Romance's song  _SING_ , which is part of my favorite album of all time and the origin of my ray gun.

I resist the urge to run up to him and say "OH MY GOD, YOU LIKE  _DANGER DAYS_?!" because that would be really embarrassing. I just stand up and watch Z greet him.

"You must be Cyber_l0rd," he says calmly, holding his hand out.

"That's me," the stranger says in a voice slightly higher than I was expecting. He shakes Z's hand firmly, then grins. "You can call me Cyber. I'm a big fan of yours, Parzival."

 _Isn't everyone_? I think to myself.

Anyway, this dude greets everyone, coming to me last because I'm the furthest away from his entry point. He's actually taller than me, which is rare for human avatars.

"And you're Aelien," he says, still smiling. "You're a good singer, you know. I like that song of yours."

"Thanks," I say, trying not to sound suspicious, which I still am. "I like your jacket." I deadpan this line on purpose, trying not to put emotion into it.

"I like your gun," Cyber replies, gesturing to my ray gun, which is still in its holster at my side. "An MCR fan, I see. Me too."

"Yeah, they're my favorite band," I say, truthfully, but still not letting any emotion into my voice.

I still don't trust this guy. Sure, I could be totally wrong, but my gut's telling me that he's trying to trick us.


	8. SEVEN

"So, you're gonna get rid of this thing, right?" I gesture to the virus behind me with my thumb.

"Ah, yes," Cyber says, pushing past me to get a better look at it. As he crouches to look at it, the rest of the group crowds around. "See, this kind of virus inputs mathematical equations to cancel out the code of its surroundings, making it like a black hole. It literally eats the game."

"So how are we stopping it, then?" Zer0 jumps in.

Cyber seems to think for a moment, then stands up and addresses the group. "I think it might just be embedded in the game's code completely. I think the only way to remove it would be to get me into GSS headquarters in real life and—"

"Whoa whoa whoa," Z holds up his hand to stop him. "In the real world? I don't know about that."

"We don't know who you are or if we can trust you," Art3mis continues.

 _Oh shit._ I feel my cheeks redden under my visor.  _Meeting up in real life means... Oh no. No no no no no._  I switch on my emotional inhibitor on and raise my visor, looking around my station. I quickly begin to hyperventilate.  _I'm going to have to tell them the truth._  I don't know why I'm freaking out about this so much. They never knew who I was anyway, it's not like I've been lying to them or anything.

"Ae?" I hear V's voice in my headphones.

I quickly try and calm myself down, put my visor back on and switch off my inhibitor. "What's up, V?"

"I don't trust him."

"Me either, believe me."

The High Five (Four?) are still trying to tell Cyber why meeting in the real world is a bad idea, but he raises his hands to stop them. "Guys, if you want to know who I am, I'll tell you." He pulls up a photo in his communications and flips the screen around to show us. It's a picture of a man whose features are identical to Cyber's. "My name's Marcus Smith. I'm thirty-five, and I live in Columbus. I have a wife and kids. I'm not your enemy."

_Whoa. I didn't think he would actually do it._

"Well, okay then," Aech says, shrugging.

Z looks shocked. "I'm still not sure about this," he whispers to me.

"Me either," I say again. "And you know how I feel about meeting in real life."

"You don't have to be there if you don't want to, Val," he says sympathetically.

"Don't call me that," I snap, or try to in a whisper. "I have to be there. I'm the one who started all this."

"Everyone," Shoto says to the group in his soft-spoken Japanese accent. It's the first time I've heard him speak. "I say we let him in. It's our best bet for saving the game."

"I'm down," Aech agrees.

"It's up to Z," Art3mis concedes.

"Well shit," Z whispers to me. He clears his throat, then says to Cyber, "If we're doing this, you have to swear that you won't reveal any information about anything you see. Kapeesh?"

"Got it, sir," Cyber says, then salutes him.

"I guess it's settled then. I'll send everyone a jet to get you here on Friday."

"Wait," Nine breaks in, "You know where we are?"

Z smirks. "I know everything, dude."

"Friday?" Zer0 says, her eyebrows furrowing. "That's a whole week away. It'll probably grow twice its size by then."

"If it's already embedded in the code, then there's not much we can do anyway," Z tells her somberly. "I've got to log out, so I'll see you all then." He reaches up, and his avatar disappears. The rest of the Five say their goodbyes and do the same.

Cyber_l0rd turns to me. "I look forward to meeting you, Aelien."

"And you," I say, still deadpanning.

"So long," he says to the four of us, then logs out as well.

My friends and I all look at each other in silence.

"Well," V says, "That happened."

"Let's go back to the TARDIS and talk in the studio," I suggest. Everyone nods in affirmative, and we head back to the ship and engage.

We all appear in the studio at the same time, and walk over to the sofa and take our places on it.

"So," Zer0 says, "We seem to be meeting in real life."

"I guess so," Nine says, looking a bit shaken up.

"Hey guys," V addresses everyone, "we don't even know each other's real names. I feel like we should know that about each other, considering how close we all are now."

 _Shit. Shit, shit, shit! What do I do?_  I am really close to logging out and just running home.

"Well, I guess we could change that," Nine shrugs nonchalantly. "V, wanna start?"

 _How can you all be so calm about this?!_ I am totally freaking out right now.  _I can't tell them my real name, but I don't want to lie! Wait, what can Val be short for that's a guy's name?_

"Alright then," V says. She takes a breath and says, "My name's Sofia. My last name is Rodriguez."

 _Sofia Rodriguez. Sofia._  For some reason, thinking about her in real life makes my heart skip a beat. I blush.  _What the hell is wrong with me?_ I pass it off as nerves and keep listening.

"I'll go next," Zer0 offers. "Hey everyone, my name's Riley Macintosh."

"I'm Sammy," Nine says. "Sammy Wong."

"What about you, Ae?" V says to me.

I take a deep breath in an attempt to compose myself and say, "Um, Val. It's short for Valerian, like the Roman emperor. I don't really like it but my parents thought it was cool, I guess. My last name is Woods." I still feel like I'm lying to them all. It's the worst feeling in the world, but I'm not ready to tell them the truth yet.

V—Sofia—grins. You know what? I'm gonna keep referring to them by their usernames. "Nice to meet you all," she says.

"Yeah, you too," I say.

"Where do you guys live?" Nine asks. "If you don't mind. Oh, and how old are you?"

"I'm nineteen," V answers calmly. "And I'm in Seattle. That's in Washington State, if you didn't know."

"Eighteen, Orlando, Florida," I say just to get it over with.

"I'm actually seventeen," Nine says, with a hint of awkwardness, "and I live in Houston, Texas."

"Um, guys?" Zer0 says. "This might be a bit of a shock to you, but..." she trails off, but then her voice suddenly changes. "I'm British. I live in London. Oh, and I'm twenty."

 _Whoa. That is definitely a British accent._  "Were you doing an American accent this whole time?" I ask, fascinated.

"Yeah," she says, smiling. "I've really perfected it over the years. But my family's from Scotland."

"With a last name like that, I wouldn't doubt it," V grins.

"Let me just say," Nine says, "Y'all are awesome. "You're the best friends I've ever had, not that that's saying much; I haven't had many friends."

"Same here, man," I admit. "I love you guys."

"Me too," Zer0 and V say simultaneously, then laugh together.

"I've got to log out," Zer0 says sadly. "My parents are making me go to bed early. I have a test tomorrow."

"But it's only 3:30," Nine says. "Wait, you're in a different time zone, I forgot." He laughs at his mistake.

"Dude, you're in a different time zone too!" I laugh. "You're an hour behind us."

"We just follow OST anyway," he shrugs. "The Wongs are an OASIS oriented family."

"Anyway, I've got to go," Zer0 says. "See you guys tomorrow!" she takes her visor off and her avatar disappears.

"I should probably go too," I say. "I've got school tomorrow."

"Ok then," V says. "Bye, Val!"

"Just call me Ae," I say sheepishly. "It's weird hearing you say my real name."

"Alright. Bye, Ae!" she comes over to me and gives me a hug.

I hug her back, and for some reason, my heart rate increases.  _Am I having heart problems or something? Or, wait, maybe..._  I shake my head to clear it of those thoughts. "Bye, V." I let go of her, give Nine a two-finger salute, and take off my visor.

I shake my hair out and run my fingers through it, attempting to relax. A lot happened today.

_She knows my name._

_They! They know my name. Why did I say_ she _?_

_What the hell is going on?_

I think I should ask my mom about it. She always seems to know what's going on. I have my suspicions, but it's always good to have a second opinion.

The truth is, it scares me.

 _Suck it up, Val!_  I scold myself. _You're eighteen, you're not a kid anymore! You can do this!_

_You can fall in love._


	9. EIGHT

My heart is still racing as I arrive back at my house and put my bike in the garage. I walk inside and see my stepdad watching a baseball game on our TV. It's a virtual game, obviously, but he still watches, pretending it's real.

"Hey Brian," I greet him.

"Hey Val," he replies. "Mom's upstairs."

"Cool."

I run up the stairs and knock on the door to my parents' room. "Mom, I'm home," I say. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," she says, and I walk in to see her folding laundry. She hugs me. "Hi Val, how was your day?"

"It was pretty awesome," I say, meaning it. I can't tell her what we actually did, however, so I go with my original cover-up. "We watched the prequels today, and we're gonna start on the originals after school tomorrow."

"Good." She smiles and lets go of me.

"Hey Mom," I begin, "I have a question... well, more like, an issue that needs solving? I dunno."

"Okay," she sits down on the bed and I sit next to her. "What's up?"

"So, my friend V..." I have no idea how else to say it, so I just throw it out there. "I think I'm falling in love with her."

My mom looks at me and smiles. "Really? Are you sure?"

"I mean, I think so. Whenever I think about her, my heart, like, pangs, and when she hugs me, my heart rate speeds up, and I blush when she makes eye contact with me..."

"Yup, that is a Grade A crush." My mom grins. "It's your first one! That's awesome! Do you know if she likes girls?"

 _Oh shit... I didn't think about that. But that would just complicate things since she knows me as a guy._ "No, I don't. I should probably ask."

"If she says yes, you should ask her out!"

"Oh, um..." I stutter, "I don't know. It scares me a lot."

"It shouldn't, really." Mom takes my hand. "You should do it sooner rather than later. You'll regret it if you don't do it as soon as possible."

"But—if she doesn't like me like that it'll be awkward and ruin our friendship!" This is a real grievance I have. I don't want anything to be awkward between us.

"You don't know that," Mom says. "I think you should go for it!"

"A-alright," I concede. "It might not happen tomorrow or anything. But I'll do it by the end of the week. Oh, by the way, her family is going to Columbus on vacation for the weekend and they invited me, is it ok if I go?"

Mom nods. "Sure, but don't get in any trouble. And don't come home without a girlfriend!"

I laugh. "I'll try!"

Mom hugs me again. "I love you, Valerie."

"I love you too." I get up. "I'm gonna hang out in my room for a bit."

"Okay, I'll come and get you for dinner."

The rest of the evening goes by fairly normally. I read more of  _Blade Runner_  before dinner, I have steak for dinner, then I watch an episode of  _Doctor Who_ (Season two, episode one,  _New Earth_. One of my favorites)before going to bed. I am not looking forward to school tomorrow.

✨

I wake up at 7:30 as normal, and grudgingly pull myself out of bed. I dress in my normal costume (black skinny jeans, band t-shirt, red converse), pack up my backpack and stumble down the stairs. I get some coffee, then hop on my bike and ride to school.

My school is really close to my house, so I'm able to ride there. I've actually accidentally ridden to my station before a couple of times, to be greeted by V telling me that it's almost time for school and a frantic ride to my school.

As I've said before, I don't have any friends there. It's entirely made up of delinquents who the school system didn't let switch to OPS (OASIS Public School), who I'm not interested in making friends with. They're all high 95% of the time anyways.

I usually don't say a word to anyone throughout the day. The only class I have that I enjoy is my fourth period, and even then I'm afraid to speak up.

I go straight to my first period, which is Art. We're asked to draw our interpretation of a song that doesn't already have a music video, so I jump at the chance to draw my mental image of  _Red Barchetta_ by Rush. It involves a classic car speeding down a country road, being chased by a giant, two-lane-wide futuristic police car. I settle on the car from the  _Blade Runner_  movie.

My next period is Trigonometry. I am literally the only person in that class. Why? Everyone else in the school is a delinquent who doesn't pay attention in class, so they fail their tests and are seen as dumb. The seniors only make it to Pre-Calculus, which I took in sophomore year. So I'm stuck in a math class that I wasn't supposed to take until college. It's actually really easy, but it's tedious. I'm not a big fan of math.

Then I have Earth-Space science. I love science, especially Astronomy, which is what we're working on now, but my teacher has the most boring method in the universe. She uses the cheap projector to put her own notes on the board and tells us to copy them. Most people in that class don't even learn anything. I usually end up having to teach myself the information, but I still have an A, so I get by.

My fourth period is my favorite, as I've said. I have AP Literature. I love that class because I like to think of myself as a writer, and a reader. So I took it because I can learn about other authors and how they work. I'm not working on any books right now, but I have a couple of awesome ideas, one of which I'm writing right now. Hello there, reader! I got the idea to write everything down after stuff actually started happening in my boring life, starting with the Incipio show. I intended to make it like a "Diary of a Rockstar" but obviously, it's beginning to become a mystery/action/possible romance story. So I write everything day-by-day. The class really helps with conveying the story. I have a feeling that this is just the rising action, though, and the real stuff is coming later.

My fifth period is Journalism. I am a writer, after all. But seeing as no one but me cares about that class, it is my responsibility to write most of the school newspaper every week. I get it done pretty quickly though, and it keeps me informed about all the depressing stuff that's going on in the world. I actually was assigned an article about my band once, and it was awesome because I already knew everything!

Next, I have AP US History. I do pretty well in that class because all you have to do is pay attention. I really like learning about America's role in world politics and stuff. Right now we're talking about the war between the US and Canada for their resources back in the 2020s. My opinion is this: dude, we need it way more than they do! Our population is huge, and we have a ton of abject poverty, whereas Canada has a few million people, and that's it! It's sad, really. Hey, we can share it with them if they need it, but  _come on_.

And last, I have Latin IV (Latin Four). I took Latin to learn about English roots and stuff (you can tell I'm really writing-oriented), but I've really only learned how to conjugate verbs that I'll never use. It's sad. I hate that class. The teacher is more like a babysitter than anything else, and she treats us like kindergarteners. But again, I pay attention, so I do well.

And then I go home. In a stroke of luck, I realize that I have no homework, and the afternoon is all mine! But I stop by my house anyway to tell my parents all of this.

You're probably wondering where my dad is right about now. I've mentioned my mom and my stepdad, but never my dad. Don't worry, I'm not gonna hit you with any sad "he died when I was a baby" crap. Here's the story so far: my mom, Shannon, and my dad, Brendan, weren't married when I showed up. I was an accident, or a surprise, in my mom's words. They got married and tried to make it work for about a year up in Maryland where I was born, but it didn't work out and my mom packed us up and we moved to Florida, leaving my dad in Baltimore. She worked her butt off in a banking job for most of my childhood, as well as paying for self-defense lessons for both of us. Then she got remarried to Brian and they're living happily ever after in our house in the suburbs. My dad's still in Baltimore, but I haven't seen him since I was a kid.

Anyways, I get home, but I don't even take the time to park my bike in the garage. I pop my head in the door, yell "I'm going to V's!" and ride quickly to my station. I find myself very excited to see V, which makes a lot more sense now that I've come to terms with my emotions.


	10. NINE

I hop straight into our studio and see V and Zer0 sitting together on the couch watching  _Ferris Bueller's Day Off_. They are notified of my presence, pause the movie, and make room for me on the couch.

"What's up, Ae?" V greets me as I sit next to her.

"School is a bitch," I sigh.

"Yeah, same," Zer0 says, surprising me by using her natural British accent. "Uni isn't treating me the best."

I understand the Britishness of that statement, but V has to ask: "Can you translate that to American?"

Zer0 laughs. Then she switches back to her American accent. "College is shit."

"Ah," V nods, then she laughs. I smile at her happiness. I'm liking this whole crush thing.

"What about you, V?" I can't help but ask. "School alright for you?"

"Actually, yeah," she says. "I can't wait to graduate."

"Me either." I begin to fantasize about her coming to my graduation ceremony in real life, then I shake my head.  _I still haven't told her about my freaking_ gender _! How do I even expect her to want to be friends with me after that?_

Suddenly, Zer0 tenses up. "Hold on, I'm getting a call," she says in her natural British dialect and presses her finger to her ear, where I assume she has a wireless communication earpiece. "Hey, what's going on? You never phone me... wait, what? What- I'm not- okay, I'm coming." She looks terrified for a moment. "I've got to go. See you guys." And then her avatar disappeared.

V and I look at each other. "Do you think she's okay?" V says, looking anxious.

"You know Zer0," I say. "She's a strong person. She'll be alright in the long run."

"But what about right now? Is she okay now?"

I don't know what to reply with, so I don't reply at all. We sit in silence for a minute.

"Hey, Ae?" V says after a moment.

"Yeah?"

She smiles, but her voice shakes when she asks: "You know the Distracted Globe?"

"'Course I do. Z wrote about it in his book. He went there with Art3mis."  _Wait, is she asking what I think she might be_ _—_

"Do you wanna—" she laughs nervously, cutting herself off. "Do you wanna, maybe, go there with me? Tonight?"

 _She is asking that. Holy shit._ I try to keep my cool as I smirk and ask, "Are you asking me on a date, V?"

She smiles, and I realize that she's probably blushing in real life. "Well, basically, yeah."

 _Oh my god. Oh. My. Freaking. God. Did my freaking_ crush _just ask me on a freaking_ date _?! What is happening?! WHAT?!_  I really want to turn on my emotional inhibitor and start jumping up and down in happiness, but I don't want to keep her waiting for an answer. "Okay then," I smile at her. "It's a date."

V grins ear to ear. "Awesome! Meet me there at seven."

"Got it, boss," I say, giving her a two-finger salute.

Then her avatar fades from the room, and I know she has probably gone off to complete some anime quest. It's only about 3:45 OST, so I know we've got plenty of time. I feel the desire to do the same, but I don't watch anime, so I hop into the TARDIS and set my course somewhere totally different.

Fun fact about the TARDIS: since it's the main vehicle of  _Doctor Who_ , it comes with a ton of themed quests. For most planets, there is an option to complete a quest in which you play the Doctor and are tasked with fighting some aliens for the good of the planet. I go straight to my favorite one, the planet Skaro, the home planet of the show's main villains, the Daleks. When I arrive, my avatar's outfit changes to that of Peter Capaldi's Doctor, and I set off.  _I'll be out of here at 6 at the latest._

I end up having to run for my life away from a group of Daleks at 6:50.

The next thing I know, I'm flying the TARDIS toward the planet Neonoir, my course set for the sphere-shaped club called the Distracted Globe. I don't bother changing my clothes, since they're already fancy-looking and I don't really have the time, but I spike up my virtual hair a bit. Then I park the ship and am soon walking through the doors.

The club is spherical, as I said, but the gravity inside it is altered so avatars can walk around on the entire inside surface of the sphere, and the center is a completely anti-gravity dancefloor. All one has to do is push off from the ground and get their boogie on.

One problem though: I can't dance to save my life. Well, in real life, anyway. I've never tried doing it in the OASIS.

Oh well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I hear a faint beeping and realize that I'm getting a call from V. I open my communications and answer it. "Hey V, what's up?"

_"Hi, Ae! Are you here yet_ _—_ _oh wait, I see you!"_

I turn in a circle, not spotting her fiber-optics. "Where are you?"

_"Look up!"_

I do as she says, and spot her directly above me, sitting at a table and waving. I hang up the call and run up the side of the sphere to meet her.

When I get close enough to see her better, my heart rate increases tenfold. She's wearing a flowing dark blue dress, which appears to have glitter scattered around it so it looks like space. Her hair is tied in a simple braid, but pieces are falling out of it and it still appears to be floating.

_Holy. Fucking. Shit. She's beautiful. I mean, she's beautiful normally, but holy shit!_

"Ae! What's up, dude?" V grins at me. "Nice outfit."

"T- thanks," I stutter. "You too—I mean, you look great."

"Why thank you!" She holds a hand out to me and smirks. "Care to dance?"

I laugh nervously. "I can't dance. Believe me, I've tried."

"Well, good thing I can!" She grabs my hand anyway. "It'll be fun. Come on!" She pushes off the floor, pulling me with her. When this happens, control of my avatar automatically switches from my body movements to my haptic gloves. There are several specific hand movements that can control my entire avatar, and it works a lot better for anti-gravity. I sit down in a lawn chair that I have next to my walking pad so I can focus on what I'm doing.

We float towards the center of the room. "So, how does this work?" I ask awkwardly over the music. The song that's playing is  _I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For_ by U2.

"It starts like this," she says, then takes both of my hands. "This goes here," she places my left hand against her waist, and I feel my face begin to heat up. "And this goes here," she raises our clasped hands up a bit. "And then you just let the music take control. I'll lead for this song, okay?" she places her right hand on my shoulder.

"O- okay," I manage. In the real world, I'm shaking violently out of nerves and pure emotion.

V starts by spinning us a bit and making our avatars orbit each other. Then she lets go of my shoulder and spins around under my outstretched arm. I know this move, I've seen it in movies. Then she pulls away from me, and I pull her back towards me. She spins inward and presses her back to my torso.

"You're getting the hang of this," she tells me.

"I suppose so," I smirk. The song is almost over, so I pull her out of that position and she spins away from me again. Then I pull her back in and dip her, my hand on her back.

"And you said you couldn't dance," she says as the song fades out.

"Well, in real life I can't dance," I say. Then the jukebox feature pops up on my display, and I get an idea. I scroll through the song choices until I find the one I'm looking for:  _Let's Dance_ by David Bowie.

"This one's more my speed," I say as the song starts.

"Oh, yes!" V exclaims. "I love this song! Bowie is awesome!"

"Let's dance," I say cheesily, taking her hand. My anxiety is still there, but for some reason, I actually have confidence. I just follow my instincts, moving my hands into virtual dance moves.

I put both of my hands on her waist and we begin to move to the beat a bit. She puts her hands on my shoulders. At this point, I just think about what I would be doing in real life and do that with my hands, which is really just moving systematically with the beat. Then the lyrics start, and I have an idea.

I start to sing along. " _Let's dance,"_ I begin, pulling her a bit closer to me.  _"Put on your red shoes and dance the blues."_  I take one of her hands and spin her around, a bit faster this time. She comes back in and has her back to me again.  _"Let's dance,"_ we sway back and forth a couple of times.  _"To the song they're playing on the radio_." I turn her around so she's facing me. I move forward, backing her up a bit. Then she throws her head back and moves me backward in the same fashion.

 _"Let's sway,"_  I pull her in closer to me and put my left arm behind her.  _"While color lights up your face."_ I run the back of my hand across her cheek, then I spin us around together. She leans back, and her hair floats up behind her.  _"Let's sway,"_ I stop our spinning and she pulls her head back up so our bodies are parallel to each other.  _"Sway through the crowd to an empty space."_ We are simply stepping in time now, so I take the time to look around. People have begun to notice our presence and have started to crowd around. I move us to the middle of the dancefloor and almost laugh about the coincidence to the lyrics.

My favorite part of the song comes next. I pull V in close and look into her eyes.  _"And if you say run, I'll run with you._ " I mean it. I would go anywhere with her, I'd do anything for her.  _"And if you say hide, we'll hide."_ I push her away but continue to hold on to her hand, causing our avatars to orbit each other in the air.  _"Because my love for you would break my heart in two."_ As the music builds, I begin to pull us closer again, causing us to spin faster. And as the song reaches its peak, we collide, our bodies pressed together perfectly.

"You liar," V laughs. "You  _can_  dance!"

"It's a lot easier here than in real life, lemme tell you," I smile back.

She puts her arms around my neck in a tight hug. I reciprocate it happily.

"Ae, there's something I have to tell you," V says into my ear.

"Go ahead," I tell her. My heart speeds up in anticipation of what she's about to say.

She takes a deep breath, then, against all odds, she says, "I think I'm falling in love with you."


	11. TEN

_"I think I'm falling in love with you."_ The statement echoes in my mind as I try to process it.

_Wait, did she just_ _—_ _I think she did. She loves me too._

_But wait, she doesn't know who I really am! I haven't told her yet... oh shit._

"V, can we talk about this?" I say, feeling like a terrible person. "In private?"

She seems unfazed by this. "Okay. Let's go to the studio."

The song fades out, and we float back to the table where V was when I came in. When we land, control of my avatar switches back to my body. We both engage and appear in the studio a moment later. Thankfully, neither Zer0 nor Nine are there. We sit on the sofa, facing each other.

"Listen V," I begin. "You don't know who I really am. I know you have feelings for me, and I have feelings for you too. But we have no idea who the other person is in real life. I don't want to sound like I'm rejecting you, which I'm not. I'm just saying let's wait until we've at least met in the real world. Okay?"

V looks me in the eyes with confusion. "But you've already told me everything I need to know. Your real name, your age..."

My heart aches.  _I have to tell her._ "V, listen... that isn't my real name."

V's eyebrows scrunch. "What?"

"My name isn't Valerian Woods."

"Well, what does that mean?" she says, a bit annoyed. "I really like you, Ae. I don't care what your name is, or what you look like, or any of that! I love  _you_!" she pauses, then she says, "What is your name then?"

I sigh and tell myself,  _you can do this._  "It's still Val, but it's not short for Valerian." I take a breath. "It's short for Valerie..." I trail off.

"...which is a girl's name." V finished.

There is a moment of silence.

"Ae, you know me, right?" V asks.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Do you really think I care what gender you are?" V laughs, but she's not joking. "Again, I'm in love with your personality, not how you look or anything on the outside. Your age is the same, right?"

"Yeah."

"So yeah, I don't really care."

 _Well shit, okay._ "Well, that's good. I just thought I should tell you to make sure."

V smiled, genuinely this time. "I look forward to meeting you, Valerie."

"Call me Val," I laugh. "You too, Sofia."

Then, my phone starts vibrating in my back pocket. I hold up a finger to indicate to V that something's going on in real life, then I raise my visor and answer the call.

"Hello?"

 _"Hey Val!"_  my mom's voice says through the speakers.  _"Are you guys doing anything important?"_

"Not really. What's up?"

_"There's a show on tonight about the 2000s. I thought you might want to watch it with us."_

"That actually sounds pretty cool," I say, truthfully. While everyone else was indulging in the 1980s, I was stuck in my parents' decade, the 2000's. "Okay, I'll be home soon."

_"Okay. I love you!"_

"Love you too. Bye!" I hang up and put my visor back on. "I've gotta go," I tell V.

"Aww, why?" she says, exaggerating her pouty-face a bit.

"My parents," I say simply. Then I elaborate: "They're against the OASIS, by the way. They don't know I'm here. That's why my avatar's so different from me in real life. I don't want them to find me on here. I'm in an abandoned gas station right now."

"Really?" she asks, incredulous. "What do you tell them you're doing?"

"That I'm with my friend V," I tell her, winking. "Technically, I'm not lying."

She laughs. "That's awesome!"

I smile. "Alright, I should probably go now."

"If you insist," V sighs. "See you tomorrow?"

"Definitely." I grin, then I log out.

✨

The rest of the week passes by like normal, with the occasional PM conversation with Parzival, band rehearsal on Wednesday, and a giant  _Star Wars_  quest on Tuesday with both groups. We never see Zer0, though.

Thursday is when things start to go downhill.

I get home from school at 2:00 and go straight to my station as normal. I meet the gang (minus Zer0) in the studio and we chat for a while over an episode of  _Cheers_.

Then, we all simultaneously receive a video call from Parzival.

I answer it and open the holographic screen so it's big enough for all of us to see and for him to see us. "Hey Z, what's going on?"

He appears to be in his stronghold on his personal planet.  _"Oh, good, you're all here. Cyber called me earlier and told me that IOI-1 is active again."_

"Wait, what do you mean?" Nine asks. "The Oology Division shut down years ago."

_"I know, I caused it. There haven't been avatars on that planet in ages, but now it's crawling with them. At least, that's what Cyber says. They might be planning something to do with the virus."_

"And are you sure we can trust him?" V says, suspicious.

_"We're just gonna go in there and look around. It's the only way to tell whether he's right or not. I called you guys to ask if you'd come too."_

"I'm in," says Nine, not surprising anyone. "Once a gunter, always a gunter."

"Those corporate asshats don't deserve anything," I say. "I'm in too."

"If he's in, I'm in," V says, looking at me and smiling.

 _"Good. Meet me in my stronghold ASAP with every weapon you have."_ He hangs up the call abruptly.

We all instantly jump from the couch and gather all of our weapons. We take off in the TARDIS within five minutes and land on Z's planet, Falco, in less. The rest of the High Five are already there. Without much ado, we all gather in Z's ship, the Vonnegut, and set off toward IOI's planet.

Z puts the ship on autopilot for the journey, which would take about fifteen minutes, and everyone mills around the ship. I stay where I am, standing beside the captain's chair.

"You okay?" Z asks.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I tell him. "I told V who I am, by the way."

"Illvsion?" he says, and I nod. "Why?"

I laugh and tell him the whole story.

When I finish, Z is smiling. "Sounds very familiar," he says, and I understand what he means. He confessed his love to Art3mis at the Distracted Globe and got the same reaction that I'd given to V from her, but it had turned out very differently, with her cutting off all contact with him for months. "So are you two dating now or what?"

I think for a second, but come up with nothing. "I actually have no idea. We said we'd figure it out after we met in the real world."

Z sighs. "I don't know if that's going to happen now," he says. "I feel like today is a turning point, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

We descend to the surface of IOI-1, to the coordinates where Cyber_l0rd told Z to meet him. From space, the planet looks like a globe of solid silver, but as you get closer, you can see hundreds of warehouses, strongholds, and hangars.

We land in an area between two buildings and scan the surrounding area for enemies. The ship's surroundings are devoid of life, which is good because there aren't any enemies, but also bad because there's no Cyber_l0rd either.

"Should we go out there?" I ask Z.

"Not all of us," he says. "If there are Sixers in there, it'll look really suspicious if eight non-Sixer looking avatars waltzed right in." he turns to address the whole group. "Ae and I will go first and scope things out. If we need you guys to come out, we'll call you."

"We'll look out for you," Aech says, clapping Z on the shoulder.

"Good luck, Ae," V smiles at me.

"Thanks," I grin in response.

Then Z and I step out into the unknown.

The surface of the planet is completely mirrored, and our reflections stare up at us as we walk. A gigantic warehouse looms ahead of us, and we start towards it.

"I've only been here once," Z says. "It was right before—"

"Before they tried to kill you and destroyed your stack," I finish.

"Yeah," he confirms. "I keep forgetting that you read my book."

"It's a good book," I tell him.

"I'm pretty proud of it, yeah," he laughs.

We walk in silence for a few minutes until we're standing in front of the building. We're at the back side, obviously. We can't just go through the front door. I take a deep breath.

"You ready?" Z asks, smiling.

"As I'll ever be," I say a bit nervously.

"Want to do the honors?"

I smile and take out my gun. Then I shoot the door's lock and the door pops open. "Hopefully no one notices that," I smirk, then we walk in.

The room we walk into is huge, and inside it are several spaceships and other artifacts. And as expected, it's crawling with Sixers.

"Just what I was afraid of," Z sighs.

I know there's something fishy going on. "So what do we do? Cyber must have a plan."

"If he has one, he didn't tell me what it is." He is quiet for a moment, then he says, "We should go back to the ship and wait for him to get here. We can't do much without a plan."

"Alright," I nod, and we walk out as quietly as possible.

We don't say much while we're walking. We're both pondering what will happen next.

Then we realize we don't have to. An IOI drone flies in front of us, and we immediately run in the other direction, back towards the building.

But it's only a moment before an army of Sixers pours from its doors, running straight at us.

"Oh hell no," Z pants. "How many weapons do you have?"

I'm not sure. "A lot."

"Good, me too. Now get one out." He pulls a giant laser cannon from his inventory and readies it.

"Can't you use your OP superpowers or something?" I ask desperately.

"I already tried!" he yells in frustration. "My auto-kill isn't working!"

My first instinct is to grab my ray gun from its holster, so I do and brace myself for the attack. Then I spot something at the head of the enemy army, and my heart drops.

It's Cyber_l0rd. He was with IOI all along.


	12. ELEVEN

"Holy shit," I yell over the din of the oncoming army. "Are you seeing this, Z?"

"I am," he says, surprisingly calm. "I should have known."

I find myself overcome with rage. IOI is ruthless. _Why do they always try to ruin everyone's lives for their own corporate gain? I hate them!_

So I make the most idiotic decision of my life at that moment. And yes, I realize that it's a stupid thing to do, but I don't really care.

I take a lightsaber from my inventory and run straight at that motherfucker.

And I swear to god, he's smiling at me as I do.

I plow my way through a group of incoming Sixers, reducing them to coins and items as I zero them out, making my way towards Cyber_l0rd.

Then he's there, right in front of me. I thrust my lightsaber towards him, but he meets it with his own lightsaber. Not surprisingly, his is red.

I take my time and strategize through this as best I can. I need to be able to catch him off guard if I want to kill his avatar. He's a very skilled fighter, parrying all of my blows.

I try to make him think I'm attacking his right when I'm actually going for his left. But he senses this.

And before I know it, he knocks the saber from my hand and holds my wrist, keeping me from moving. I struggle for all I'm worth, but his grip doesn't budge. But surprisingly, he doesn't try to kill me. He just smirks at me condescendingly, making me want to sock him in the jaw. 

But since I can't attack physically, I resort to a verbal approach. "Why are you doing this?" I yell. "We trusted you!"

He laughs loudly. " _You_ didn't! You were smart, you didn't trust me for a second! But unfortunately for you, you never acted on your suspicions."

"Just answer my question!"

He grins evilly. "I suppose I could tell you, you're dead meat anyway. IOI has a complete copy of the OASIS. After we destroy this one, everyone will be scrambling to access ours, but we'll actually charge them for it. Do you know how much profit we'll get?"

"So this is just about money?" I continue to scream. "You don't even care about the people using the OASIS! Their whole lives are on here! But if they can't afford it, their lives are ripped from their hands like candy from a child!"

"Exactly!" Cyber_l0rd roars. "It'll weed out the trash from the stacks that don't deserve access. And just for the record, kid, it's not just about money. It's about revenge, for my best friend's life."

"Well you're not getting rid of me that easy," I threaten.

"Oh, Valerie," he grimaces, "you have no idea."

I freeze. He just used my real name. "How do you know me?" In the real world, my heart is racing and I'm sweating bullets. But I try to keep my cool.

"We know everything," he says simply. "You bought all of your gear from iSupplies, right?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

He chuckles evilly. "Just so you know, that company is a division of IOI. We bought it a bit after the contest started. And of course, when we found out you had bought gear from them, we couldn't help listening in. You and your friend Sofia talked all about it. You should be more careful. We looked up Valerie Athena Woods in the USCR, and there you were, along with your home address."

 _No. no, no, no, no! NO!_  "You'll regret that," I threaten. I'm not even at my house, but if anything happens to my family, I will get revenge. I don't even know what I'll do yet, but it'll be bad.

He continues to smile. "Well, at least there will be one less maggot in our way of—"

Then my scenery changes abruptly. I am no longer facing Cyber_l0rd.

I'm looking straight into the tear-filled eyes of my mom.

✨

I am sitting in a chair at my station, my mom and stepdad standing over me. Mom holds my OASIS visor in her hand, but I can clearly see the words "GAME OVER" written on the display.

"How could you do this, Val?" my mom says. "You lied to us, and for how long?"

I didn't answer at first. Guilt was eating me alive.

"She said,  _how long_?" Brian yells, getting close to my face.

"Four years," I whisper. I don't want to start crying, but the tears appear in my eyes regardless.

"Four years!" Brian roars. "Let me tell you, you'll be lucky to leave the house when you're thirty!"

"We trusted you, Valerie," Mom says. I've never seen her this upset in my life. "And you lied to us for  _four years_."

I want to stand up for myself. I want to tell them my side, I want to fight back. But I can't. I don't want to upset my mom any more than I already have.

"And you're not even sorry," Brian yells. "All you want to do is run back to that fucking  _game_  as if it's your whole life!"

"I am sorry!" I blow up finally. "You think I'm not? I regret ever putting on that visor!"

"No, you—"

"Just  _listen to me_  for once!" I yell. Then I take a deep breath. "I don't have any friends. In the real world, there is literally no one to talk to. I have you guys, of course, but I have no one my age to talk to and have fun with! Everyone in my school is high ninety-five percent of the time, and even if I tried to talk to them, I wouldn't be able to carry on a conversation.

"But on the OASIS, I met four of the most amazing people in the world. And before you go saying, "you don't know anything about them in real life", I do, actually! Their names are Sofia, Sammy, and Riley, and they are my best friends. And you know what else? I found my passion, too! I love playing guitar and singing, and I would never have started without the OASIS. I'm in a band, and my voice is finally heard! We're called the Destiny Detonators, and we're famous! And I know it sounds cheesy, but I found love, too. And yes, I want to run back to it like it's my whole life, but that's because it  _is_  my whole life!

"But here's the catch: now the whole thing is in jeopardy. There's this company that wants to destroy it and claim it as their own, all for monetary gain! And I'm trying to stop them. But you probably ruined my chances at doing that, because I was in the middle of a freaking  _war_! The OASIS is pretty much dead meat without me, 'cause I'm the only one who knows their plans. And we all know that there will be thousands of suicides if people can't access the OASIS. I'm trying to save lives here-"

"At the cost of your own life," Brian cuts me off. "You don't appreciate the world you live in, I get it. But you sure as hell will appreciate the inside of your room until you're thirty!" he grabs my wrist and pulls me from the chair. "We're going home."

Then I'm reminded of what Cyber_l0rd said. "Wait!" I pull back. "They have our address! They're going to blow it up; we'll die if we go back there!"

"You're crazy," he says, continuing to drag me to the car. "That game messed with your head."

"Brian," Mom says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure about this?"

"They wouldn't go as far as killing us, Shannon!" Brian shouts.

"Yes, they would!" I shoot back. "They've done it before! They did it to Wade Watts, remember? Now I'm in the way of them getting the OASIS, and they want to get rid of me too!"

Then it happens. I hear an explosion coming from the direction of our house. I pull my arm from Brian's grip and run outside, to see smoke coming from that direction.

Mom runs outside too, and as soon as she sees it, she takes my hand and we run to the car. I get in the backseat to make room for Brian, and then we drive off.

Usually, when we're going home, we'd drive into our neighborhood and then turn straight into our driveway and up into our garage, then go inside the house from there.

But instead of a driveway and a house, there is only rubble.

There are fire trucks right behind us on our way, and they get to work on the fire as soon as we arrive.

But there it is: proof that IOI will do anything to get what they want.

I'm still crying, though I tried to stifle it. I'd grown up in that house. Up until I was fourteen, my whole life happened in that house. We have nowhere to go now.

"Val," Brian says to me. "I'm really sorry for doubting you."

"Just—" my voice cracks, "don't mention it."

Then I start to sob. I feel like a total wimp, but I can't help it. My mom holds her arms out to me, and I fall into them, burying my face in her shoulder.

An ambulance arrives a few minutes later. The paramedics ask us questions about what happened, but we tell them that we weren't there. They give me a shock blanket anyways, and they sit me in the back of the ambulance.

News vans start to arrive as well. They do a live report on the incident, and they interview my parents. They ask me if it's okay to interview me too, but I tell them no.

Then, about fifteen minutes after the news report, my phone rings. It's a call from my dad. I answer it tentatively. "Hello?"

_"Hey, Val. It's Dad. Are you okay?"_

"Okay is a relative term," I say, attempting to cover up my sadness with comedy.

He laughs a bit, then goes back to sounding concerned.  _"I bought you all plane tickets up to Maryland so you can stay with me for the time being, if that's okay. I emailed them to your mom."_

"Really?"  _Thank god._  "Thank you so much! I'll tell Mom and Brian."

 _"Hey,_ " he says,  _"I miss you, kiddo._ "

"I miss you too," I say, tears reappearing in my eyes. "I'll see you soon though, I guess."

_"Yeah, you will."_

"I love you, Dad."

_"I love you too."_


	13. TWELVE

I hang up the call and get out of the ambulance to see Mom and Brian. "Guys," I say, my voice weak, "Dad called. He said he bought us tickets to go up to Maryland and stay with him for a while. He sent you the tickets already."

"Oh, really?" Mom says, sighing in relief. "God bless Brendan Woods. Did you thank him?"

"Of course I thanked him, Mom," I say, almost laughing.

There's a moment of silence as she checks her email for the tickets. They're there alright, and they say that our flight is at 9:30 OST. It is currently 6:45, which gives us enough time to go to the airport and go through security.

But before we leave, Mom convinces Brian to let me stop by my station and bring my OASIS visor and haptic gloves with me. I also put on my haptic bootsuit thing on under my clothes.

Airports are weird. No one really flies anywhere anymore; they just do it in the OASIS. So there are very few planes still running out of the gigantic Orlando International Airport. Therefore, security is a breeze. We board our flight to Baltimore and are in the air shortly.

Most of the other people on the flight jack into the OASIS as soon as we take off. I would like to do the same, but I refrain from it for a few minutes to admire the view. It's pretty awesome, getting to see the city from the air. It was a really large city before the temperature spike, and all of the skyscrapers are still there. It looks pretty bleak though, due to the lack of lights in the windows of the buildings.

Then, with my mom's permission, I finally log back into the OASIS.

My avatar zeroed out after my mom pulled my visor off, obviously, so I have to create a new avatar. I have the same username, which is good, but I have no time to recreate my old avatar completely, so I just let the system scan my face and hair, then input my height, weight, and gender. When I finish, I'm left with an avatar that is identical to me in real life.

I finally log in completely and appear at the location where I had last logged out, IOI-1. There aren't any Sixers around, which is good, but my friends are nowhere to be seen either.

Then I hear a familiar sound. The TARDIS is materializing. I turn around as it lands, then am greeted with Illvsion's smiling face peeking out of the doors.

"Hey, Val. How ya been?"

I grin. "I'm alright. What about you, Sofia?"

She jumps out of the TARDIS and crushes me in a hug. I'm a bit surprised by the fact that we're the same height. "I was so worried. You wouldn't just log out during a fight. What happened?"

So I tell her the whole story. We climb into the TARDIS as I talk, and she listens intently. "...and now I'm on a plane," I finish.

"Cool stuff." She smiles and hugs me again. "I can't believe they would do that! Thank god you weren't at home. And your stepdad sounds like a total jerk!"

"He's not, actually," I say. "He just has one hell of a temper. Anyways, what happened here? How'd you guys get out of there?"

She takes a breath. "So we saw the Sixers running at you guys and we ran out to help. I got to you just as you zeroed, and I managed to pick up your stuff. I got caught up with Cyber_l0rd for a bit, but then Parzival came up behind him and shot him. We joined back up with the rest of the group, but we were still really outnumbered. Then, out of the blue, the Millennium Falcon appeared in the sky and threw a rope ladder down to us. We all climbed on and it flew us away, and it was Zer0 flying it!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! There she was, apologizing for leaving us. She said she'd explain everything when you got back. Then I got the notification that you'd respawned, so I came, and here I am!"

I sigh. "And everyone else is okay?"

"Yup. Lost a few HP, but not much else."

"Good." I get up and stand next to the console, ready to set course. "Where to?"

"Falco," she tells me.

"Cool." I set course for Falco, Z's small asteroid stronghold.

We arrive there in a few minutes. V walks out first to greet everyone and tell them that I'm there. It seems that only Nine and Zer0 are outside.

Then I come out, shooting them finger guns and saying, "What up, y'all?"

I'm expecting some sort of greeting, a "hi Ae," at least, but they just give me weird looks.

"Uh," Zer0 says, "V, are you sure you got the right person?"

"One hundred percent," V said confidently.

"Oh yeah, I'm a girl in real life, hey," I say awkwardly. "It's still me though." I've been putting this off forever, but honestly, it's not as stressful as I thought it would be.

Nine jumps in and starts interrogating me. "What's Ae's favorite movie?"

" _Blade Runner_." I roll my eyes. "Guys, it's me."

"What's his favorite album of all time?"

" _Danger Days_ , My Chemical Romance."

"Favorite song of all time?"

"Oh, that's a hard one; I have a lot of favorites..." I say, thinking for a minute. " _Capricorn (A Brand New Name)_ , Thirty Seconds to Mars."

"What are all of our real names?" Nine asks, raising his eyebrows.

I sigh and point at each of them, saying their respective names. "V is Sofia Rodriguez, Zer0 is Riley Macintosh, and you're Sammy Wong."

"It's him," Nine confirms, with a slight bit of...  _is that disappointment in his voice?_  "That is, it's  _her_." Then he smiles and hugs me. "Dude, what happened? Are you okay?"

"Ae! Welcome back!" Z walks into the room and recognizes me instantly. The rest of the High Five come too.

"Hey Z," I greet him.

We all sit down on the various couches and chairs in the room, then I relay the whole story to Zer0, Nine, Z, Art3mis, Aech, and Shoto. I also explain my real name and why I chose to hide everything about myself. They're all really understanding, fortunately.

"IOI is messed up," Zer0 comments when I finish.

"True," Aech agrees. "We know what's up. They have to be stopped."

"So I have to change the plane's destination to Baltimore, then?" Z asks me.

"Yeah, if we're still planning to meet in Columbus," I tell him. "I don't know if my parents will go for that, though."

"Dude, you're eighteen," Art3mis comments. "You should be able to do what you want."

"You're right," I say. "They can't trap me forever."

"Oh, by the way," Z interrupted, "I think I figured out what to do about the virus."

Everyone voiced a different interpretation of "really?" or "tell us!"

"I was going through the OASIS's main server room and saw a flash drive. I looked into it and realized that that flash drive originally contained the virus and it was implanted directly into the OASIS's code. If we can find the virus's code, we might be able to delete it from Ludus's code and then rebuild the parts that it ate."

"Oh my god," I say, and I grin. "Yes!"

"But the key word there is  _might_ ," Z added. "IOI may have embedded it so much that it's inoperable."

"Let's not think about that right now," I say.

"Zer0," Art3mis says, "Your plane just arrived. Just go to the London Airport and tell the receptionist your name and they should take you right to it."

"Awesome!" Zer0 says, standing up. "I'll be right back."

"Wait," Nine says, "You said you would tell us what happened, why you logged out for so long."

Zer0's face hardens. "I will the next time I see you guys," she tells him.

"Cool," Nine says. Then Zer0's avatar disappears.

We all continue to chat, then we decide to put on a movie. There is a unanimous vote for  _Blade Runner_. We watch it for about 45 minutes until my mom nudges me and tells me that the plane is landing. I bid everyone goodbye, for now, then Z tells me that my plane will be at the Baltimore airport at 6:30 the next morning. Then I pull my visor off.

Baltimore is an interesting city. It's not as large as some others, like Columbus or New York, but it's pretty densely populated, and its stacks are the largest and most dangerous in the country. It wasn't the best city to live in even before the energy crisis, but since everyone was pretty poor anyways, everyone had to resort to living in the stacks. The stacks have grown to be up to fifty trailers high, and surround the city entirely. Fortunately, my dad doesn't live in the stacks, he lives in the small suburb section.

We land after maneuvering into the center of the stacks to the airport.


	14. THIRTEEN

I'm really excited to see my dad. I have an image in my head of what he looks like. It's mainly based on pictures I'd seen of him from when he and my mom were together; soft blue eyes, dark hair, strong arms from playing the guitar his whole life, and wearing a vintage rock band t-shirt and jeans. He has a slight accent due to him being born in Britain and having moved here in the 2020s. I make the immediate decision to run to him and hug him as soon as I see him.

We disembark from the plane and walk out of the terminal. When we reach the entrance, I see a forty-something looking man holding a sign that says  _Smith_ , which is Brian and Mom's last name. He has graying hair and is wearing a vintage rock band t-shirt and jeans, and as we get closer I see that he has soft blue eyes, identical to the ones in his photos.

It's my dad.

So I start running. He spots me, grins, and opens his arms to me. Then we collide, and I realize how much I missed him. He wraps his arms around me, and I feel safe.

"Hi Val," he says, then kisses my forehead.

"Hi, Dad." I look up at him. He looks a bit older than the photos but other than that, he is exactly how I pictured him.

Mom and Brian come over to us then, and we all walk outside to Dad's car. Dad and I talk a lot, just like we always do on the phone. Then I tell him the whole story of what's happened in the OASIS so far. He says he's extremely proud of me for standing up for myself and my friends.

We get to his house in about half an hour. He gives us a tour of the small townhouse that he lives in, and I admire his giant OASIS rig in his living room on the first floor of the house. Mom and Brian decide that they will sleep in the guest room on the second floor, and I'll sleep on the couch downstairs.

Then I psych myself up to talk to Mom and Brian about going to Columbus.

They set up camp in the guest room, and when they finish I catch them. "Hey, can I talk to you guys?"

"Sure honey," Mom says.

"So you heard my story about everything that's happened, right? That I was telling Dad?"

"Yeah."

"When we were on the plane, Parzival told us that he found a way to get rid of the virus, but he needs our help. He's sending a private jet to Baltimore to pick me up and take me to Columbus tomorrow morning."

"Wait, wait, wait," Brian interrupts, "Columbus? No."

"Why not? I'm eighteen, I should be able to go where I want."

"Brian, she's right," Mom says.

"She's also grounded," Brian argues.

"Brian!" Mom yells. "Val is an adult! She isn't under our control anymore! We can ground her as much as she can ground us."

Brian looks at her, then says, "You know, if she's such an adult, she should be moving out by now." Then he looks at me. "You can go on one condition: you are out of my house by the next school year. Got it?"

I nod, resisting the urge to say  _we don't even have a house right now_.

Then he turns and walks down the stairs without saying a word.

"I'm taking that as a yes," Mom says. "I'm sorry about him."

"It's okay," I tell her. "I could probably just move into my station if I wanted to. I can afford food and stuff."

"No, you need to find a nice apartment," Mom says. "That place is old and dirty. I couldn't live there if I tried." She laughs.

Then my dad's voice calls me from downstairs: "Hey Val, come and see this. Bring your visor and your gloves."

I do as he says, and go downstairs to see him setting up his rig. His haptic chair is spherical in shape and is one of the fancy ones that can simulate pretty much anything. He also has an omnidirectional treadmill that's identical to the one that's in my station. "You should try this, you'll like it."

"Heck yeah!" I say, getting ready to climb in the chair when I hear my mom clearing her throat from behind me.

"In the morning, Brendan," Mom tells him from the edge of the room. "She needs to go to sleep, it's 11:45."

"Aww," I whine. "But I have to leave in the morning!"

"You also have to sleep to stay alive," Mom says firmly. "And you have to wake up early anyway."

"Darn it," I sigh, giving in. "'Night, Dad, 'night, Mom."

"Goodnight, baby girl."

They both leave the living room. I set an alarm on my phone for 4:30 AM the next day. I don't have any pajamas to put on so I just stay in my jeans and Fall Out Boy t-shirt. I grab a blanket from next to the couch and lay down, putting the blanket over myself.

But I can't sleep, at first. When I close my eyes, Sofia Rodriguez's face is there. Not V's face, but her real-world counterpart; the picture she sent me. It feels so typical: falling in love with my best friend. But it feels wonderful to know that she reciprocates my feelings. If I think about it, these feelings have been around for months now, I just didn't act on them until now. But I'm really glad she asked me on that date. And now I'm drowning in the anticipation and excitement of seeing her tomorrow.

I do fall asleep after a while, but it's with the image of her still in my mind.

✨

I wake up to the alarm that I set for myself yesterday. At first, I think that I'm still at home and that I'm about to go to school. Then I look around and see that this is not my bedroom, and the memories flood back to me. I realize that my life as I know it has been reduced to rubble and ash. Last month all I had to worry about was not getting caught in the OASIS and doing well at shows. Now my life and the lives of my family are at risk.

I decide not to focus on this fact. I get up and put my only belongings, my OASIS gear, into my bag. I don't have to change my clothes at all, so I simply go outside to my dad's car. It's a self-driving car, so I don't have to worry about the fact that I never learned how to drive. It also has many safety features on it so I'm safer riding through the stacks.

The drive is completely uneventful until we get to the stacks.

I've heard a lot about the stacks on the newsfeeds, but I've never seen them in person. What I see now is so much poverty in one place that it's unbelievable. There are several people just wandering around here looking like they haven't eaten in months, which they probably haven't. The windows on the car are one-way glass, so they can't see that I'm in here. Surprisingly, I never get attacked, and I make it to the main city shortly. Then I'm at the airport in about ten minutes.

The car drops me off at the front entrance, and I make my way to the main ticket kiosk. I follow Wade's instructions and tell the man standing there, whose name tag reads "Fred", my name. Fred understands immediately and escorts me to the tarmac, where we walk in silence for a few minutes until we reach a small jet with a staircase leading up to its door.

And to my surprise, Wade is standing in the doorway, waving to me. He's dressed exactly like you'd imagine him, in a black t-shirt with the Atari logo on it, jeans, and sneakers. "Hey, Val! Come on up."

I do as he says. When I get inside the plane, he doesn't hesitate to give me a hug. I reciprocate it gladly. "I didn't know you were going to be here," I grin.

"I figured you'd want to see a friendly face after everything," he says. "I sure did. I know how that feels. Anyway, you can go look around."

The inside of the plane is pretty much what I was expecting: a swanky private jet. There were sofas and tables, and a small bar in the corner. "Cool stuff."

"Yeah," he says, not that enthusiastic. "I wanted to put in a jukebox and maybe a couple of arcade machines, but they wouldn't let me."

"That sucks," I agree.

We both sit down on one of the sofas, which was facing a large, flat-screen TV. "I've got access to the OASIS's entertainment archive," Wade tells me, turning the TV on, "so we have every movie and TV show in existence. Take your pick."

"Shouldn't we log into the OASIS?" I ask. "The rest of the gang is probably wondering where we are."

"No, they're not," he says. "They're all at GSS HQ right now, and they know we're on our way. They're probably geeking out about something as we speak."

"True," I say. "Would you happen to have  _Blade Runner 2049_? I haven't watched that movie in forever."

"Of course," he answers, pressing a few buttons on the remote control. "You just love the 2010s, don't you?"

"Mainly the 2000s, actually," I tell him, "but yeah, those too."

The plane begins to roll down the runway as Wade pulls up the movie and presses "play". The flight is only an hour long, so we only make it about a third of the way through the movie, but Wade promises that we'll finish it at some point.

The view of Columbus is pretty awesome from the air. That is, after we break through the cloud of smoke and pollution. The old IOI HQ towers over the rest of the city, its three skyscrapers piercing the cloud layer. I wonder if it's active again now, but I know it probably is. The Gregarious Simulation Systems building is on the outskirts of the city. It stands tall against the suburbs surrounding it. The surface of it is made up of windows, so it mirrors the plane as we pass it. We land on its small private runway.

"Here we are," Wade says, smiling. "Home sweet home."


	15. FOURTEEN

We get off the plane fairly quickly and are escorted into the building by two bodyguards in suits. Wade says, "Don't mind them. They'll leave us alone as soon as we get in."

When we do get inside the spacious lobby, they do leave us, but we're immediately approached by several people in business attire. Each of them come to Wade with a different grievance, and he addresses them as if he was born to. He takes my hand and leads me through the crowd. I'm left very confused by the whole thing once we reach the elevators across the lobby.

Wade seems to notice this and looks concerned. "You okay?"

"Just a bit overwhelmed, that's all," I tell him. "I've never really been in a crowded area before."

"Oh yeah," he says. "Anyways, we're headed up to the rec area and living quarters. You're all going to stay here for the time being."

"Is everyone else up there?"

"Yep!"

My heart rate increases tenfold. I'm about to meet my online almost-girlfriend in real life, and I'm excited as I could possibly be. I can't wait to meet her, and possibly hug her, hold her in my arms, kiss her...  _no, I should not be having these thoughts yet! We haven't even met! Calm down, Val!_

The elevator is playing  _You Make My Dreams_  by Hall and Oates at a low volume. That is very appropriate, considering my situation.

"You excited to meet your friends?" Wade asks.

"Yeah," I tell him. "Maybe I'll finally figure out what's going on between me and Sofia."

"I'm positive that it'll end up well. Trust me, it was way worse with Samantha."

"Believe me, I know," I smirk.

Then the elevator makes a small  _ding_  sound as we arrive on the forty-third floor.

"You ready?" Wade asks, grinning.

"As I'll ever be." I take a deep breath, trying to dispel my anxiety.

The doors open. The room that it opens into looks like a large living room, except that the walls are covered in old movie and band posters. There are a couple of arcade machines as well as a jukebox in one corner, a small kitchen in another, and in the third is a large couch in front of a large television that has every video game console imaginable hooked up to it. And there are six people on the couch. They all stand up and begin to walk over.

And then, there she is. The first thing I see is her eyes. The photo that I'd seen of her was black and white, so I couldn't tell that her eyes were the color of warm chocolate and that I would later feel as if I'm drowning in them, as I do now. Her hair is ebony black and seems to flow over her shoulders. She's wearing an oversized  _Star Trek_  t-shirt and shorts, but it doesn't make her look any less beautiful. The way she holds herself suggests a lot of shyness, as if she's afraid to confront me. She has a bashful smile, and it makes my heart feel like it's beating right through my chest.

 _My god,_  I think,  _I am in love with her._

Then Sofia jumps forward and throws her arms around me. At first, my mind reacts by saying  _holyshitholyshitholyshitholyshitholyshit_ , but then I realize what's happening, and put my arms around her as well. My heart swells.  _This is actually happening!_

"Hi Ae," she says, and I can hear in her voice that she's smiling.

"What's up, V?" I reply and pull back to look at her face. She's a few inches taller than me, so I incline my head to look into her eyes. I am mesmerized by her smile.

"You're even more beautiful in real life," she says softly.

I laugh and say, "Speak for yourself!"

"Hey, get a room!" a voice says behind her. I look over her shoulder and see an East Asian looking guy wearing a  _My Neighbor Totoro_  shirt laughing at us. I recognize his voice; it's Sammy.

"Shut up, Nine," I say, smiling.

He comes over and we bro-hug. He's really tall in comparison to me. "Your name's still Val, right?"

"Yeah."

"Nice." He grins. "Dude, you have no idea how long I've wanted to meet you!"

"Yeah, me too," I tell him, "though it's a bit weird seeing you without the ears and tail."

"You hypocrite, you're a girl in real life!"

"What am I, chopped liver?" a cockney British voice says, and I instantly recognize Zer0, or Riley. The only difference between her and her avatar is that she's wearing a Twenty One Pilots sweatshirt instead of a muscle shirt. Her hair is bright pink, too.

I go over to her and we hug. We're the same height, which is a bit weird since I usually tower over her in the OASIS. "You look just how I pictured your Scottish ass."

"Ha! You can talk," she laughs. "You look more Irish than anyone I've ever seen, Ae."

"Hey," Wade gets our attention. "Sorry to break up the reunion, but we've got business to attend to."

I roll my eyes in his direction and say, "Can't it wait? The source code isn't going anywhere."

"Yeah it is," he said. "It's being eaten by a virus as we speak!"

I sigh. "True. Fine, let's go check it out."

We all pile into the elevator. Thankfully, it's fairly large for an elevator. The GSS building has five levels of underground floors, and we ride down to the second one from the surface.

When we enter the room, we are instantly surrounded by a ton of giant computers, which I know hold the source code for the OASIS. We all proceed to weave our way through the maze of machinery to the corner of the room, where a single computer monitor sits on a desk, with wires connecting it to every computer in the room.

"There's a computer marked 'Sector 3' over there," Wade says. "Someone should go over there, and when I tell you, take out the flash drive that's plugged into it."

"I'll go," Riley says, then runs in the direction that Wade pointed in.

"Now I'm gonna go into Ludus's code and move the virus's code over to the flash drive." Wade boots up the monitor and it starts showing millions of ones and zeroes.

"What if it doesn't work?" Sofia asks tentatively.

Wade grits his teeth. "We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." He presses the "control" key on the keyboard and the "F" key at the same time, and a search bar appears. He types in "Ludus I" and hits the "enter" key, and the monitor pulls up a section of code with the word LUDUS I above it. Wade scrolls through the seemingly endless list of ones and zeroes until he hits a gap. His eyes widen and he continues scrolling. The gap is very large, and when Wade scrolls back to the edge, I see that the code surrounding it is disappearing, letter by letter. "That's it," he says gravely. "The virus."

"Well, how are we supposed to get rid of it?" Sammy asks, wiping his palms on his jeans, which I assume is because they're sweating. He's anxious.

"It's exactly what I was afraid of," Wade sighs. "It's inoperable. We can't remove it. All it is is an algorithm that contradicts every character of code in the system, multiplying it by zero. Code is only numbers, so multiplying all of it by zero eliminates it entirely."

"So it's over then," I say. I don't want to say it, but I do. "They have a copy of the OASIS, but it's all commercialized like they wanted it to be. They're going to release it after this one is gone. They've got their revenge."

"Riley," Wade calls, "You can come back now."

She jogs back with a concerned look on her face. "Why? Is everything alright?"

"No, it's really not," Sammy tells her. "We can't get rid of it."

"Shit!" Riley yells. "Those IOI motherf—"

"Wait," Sofia speaks up. "Ae—I mean, Val—you said that IOI has a copy of the OASIS? The whole thing?"

"Yeah, Cyber_l0rd, well, Marcus Smith, told me the whole thing before he tried to kill me. He thought it was safe because I was going to die."

Sofia's eyes light up. "Wade, if we were to get ahold of this thing, would you be able to remove all the ads and fees and stuff?"

"Have you read my book?" Wade chuckles. "I could do it in my sleep."

"I have an idea!" Sofia grins.

"That's obvious enough," Riley laughs. "What is it?"

"If we could get into IOI headquarters and steal their copy, we could replace the OASIS!"

Wade's jaw dropped. "Holy shit, yes! I could just go into the OASIS and destroy it, then activate the new one! Sofia, you're a genius!"

"But how are we going to do that?" Sammy asks.

"I'll go," I volunteer instantly. "I'm good at blending in."

"No," Sofia jumps in. "I'm not letting you risk your life. If they find you, they won't hesitate to kill you."

"But I'm..." I try to come up with something to support my cause, "small and stealthy."

"You are single-handedly the loudest person I have ever met, Val," Riley laughs.

"But does anyone else want to do it?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.

Sammy shrugs, holding his hands up, and everyone laughs. "True, true."

"I mean, if we have a willing volunteer, I don't see why not," Wade says. "But obviously we're going to have to send more people. I would go, but the company would never let me. I'm 'too important', or 'too valuable', or something."

"I'll go too," Sofia said instantly.

"Dude!" I shout. "No!"

"Hypocrite," she laughs. "If you're going, I'm going."

"Fine," I say, "But if you die, I'm gonna bring you back to life and kill you again!"

She laughs, and my heart skips a beat. "I'd do the same for you."

"We'll go into the surveillance room and loop the cameras," Riley offers.

"Wait, what?" Sammy argues. "I did not agree to-"

"You agreed to stand up for and with your friends when you joined this band," Riley cut him off. "You're doing this."

He shrugs again. "Okay then!"

"It seems we have our team," Wade smiles.


	16. FIFTEEN

"So what needs to happen is that Val and Sofia will go up to Smith's office and get into his computer," Wade begins. "Then you'll move that copy of the OASIS onto one of our flash drives that can hold pretty much everything in existence, and get the hell out of Dodge. Sammy and Riley, you'll get your way into the security monitoring room and loop the cameras. You'll all be communicating through some earpieces that we have. Sound like a plan?"

"Sure," I say. "When do we go?"

"Not now, please," Sammy says sternly.

"Nah, I wouldn't make you do that," Wade chuckles. "First thing tomorrow. I have to do some more planning anyway, and I should tell the rest of the Five before anything drastic happens."

"Good," Sammy sighs. "We need some time to rest, at least."

"I should show Val her room anyway," Wade says. "For now, you guys can just chill out. Or you could hit the OASIS, see what's going on. You all have rigs in your rooms, as you know."

"Really?" I ask, excited. "Awesome!"

"Full haptics, advanced sound systems, omnidirectional tracks, all that jazz," Wade grins.

We all get back into the elevator and take it back to the forty-third floor. I grab my backpack which holds all of my meager possessions and followed everyone down a hallway where the guest bedrooms were.

Wade shows me into my temporary room, which contains a simple queen-sized bed, vintage wallpaper and carpets, and the largest OASIS rig I'd ever seen. It has a top-of-the-line haptic chair and omnidirectional treadmill, as well as surround-sound speakers all over the room.

"Holy actual shit," I gasp, pulling my visor from my bag frantically. "I need this in my life!"

"You know, you're free to stay here as long as you want," Wade says, leaning in the doorframe.

"Wait," I spin to face him, "you mean it?"

"I mean, you'd have to pay rent if you actually want to live here, but I know you can afford it, so yeah."

Without thinking, I run over to him and throw my arms around him. "Dude, I cannot thank you enough. My parents kicked me out of our nonexistent house earlier, by the way."

He hugs me back and laughs. "Really? Well then, I guess I'm your landlord now. I won't be one of those evil ones, I promise."

"I sure hope not!" I pull away from Wade and grab my visor, pulling it onto my forehead. "I'm going in."

"See you when you return," Wade says, then he two-finger salutes me.

I shoot him finger guns in return, then I hop into the haptic chair and pull my visor over my eyes. The interface asks me for my password, and I recite a simple quote: "Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person."

Then the words  _READY PLAYER ONE_  appear on my display, and I'm in.

I spawn on Incipio, as all Level One avatars do. I look exactly like I do in real life, which I plan to change as soon as possible. I do still have the TARDIS in my inventory, though it's the only item I have. I take it out and place it on the ground, letting it grow to full size before walking into it and engaging.

I pull up the avatar appearance interface and slowly work my way back to how I looked before I zeroed out. I switch my gender back to male, my hair back to purple and shaggy, and my skin back to a pale shade of blue. This is all I can do, however, because clothes have to be bought, so I stick with the default black t-shirt and blue jeans. Then I go straight to our private chat, the studio. Everyone else is already there, setting up our instruments.

"Hey, look who's back to normal!" Nine runs over to me, his lynx tail swaying behind him.

"What's up—oh wait, my voice mod!" I laugh, realizing that I'd forgotten to switch my voice back. I pull up my basic settings and turn on my voice modifier. "That's better," I say in my usual deep voice.

"We decided to do a live performance from here," Zer0 tells me. "And we should let everyone know why we haven't been heard from lately and that there's shit going down."

"Okay, got a setlist yet?" I ask, then I get a PM from V with a list of some of my favorite songs. She smiles at me, and my heart melts.

"Delta's gonna be so mad at us for not telling him about this," Nine laughs.

"Okay, let's get this party started!" V pulls out her drone camera, throws it in the air and starts recording.

"Hello, the OASIS!" I smile at the camera. "This is Detonation Television, live in the Studio. We've been gone for a while, so we thought we'd give you guys a treat. Let's hit it!"

Zer0 tapped out a  _one, two, three, four_  with her drumsticks, and we launched straight into  _3veryone 3lse_.

And it's as if nothing had ever happened, and as if there isn't a risk of all of us dying tomorrow, for real.

Next, we cover  _Tom Sawyer_  by Rush again, then  _The Sharpest Lives_  by My Chemical Romance. Then we do a couple more of our original songs in a row. Once that's finished, I figure it's time to explain.

"So guys," I begin, "You're probably wondering why we haven't been seen anywhere lately. Well, the truth is, we've gotten in a bit of trouble with some people we thought were gone for good three years ago. And another thing that we should probably tell you all: the OASIS is gonna shut down at some time tomorrow. I'm not kidding or lying or anything. There's a virus that's eating the OASIS alive right now, and we can't get rid of it, so the OASIS has to be destroyed completely. But don't worry, it'll be back up within one week of tomorrow."

I can almost hear every avatar in the whole server screaming in denial.

"So I advise you all to log out now so you don't experience the grief of zeroing out. We're gonna play one more song, then we're hitting the hay for now. But we'll be back with the OASIS, I promise." I smile at the camera. "Here's  _Waterfell_."

And we play our hearts out.

And then it's over.

We all log out of the OASIS for the (hopefully not) last time. I take off my visor, stand up, and place it on my haptic chair.

I take a deep breath. For the first time in a while, I wonder about the future. Usually, I don't really care; I just go with the flow. But now I realize: I'm not where I was. My life was turned completely upside down. Where do I go from here?

I'm living in GSS HQ now; maybe I could learn how to code and get a job here. I have the band too, but what if that doesn't last forever?

And what about Sofia? I love her, I know that. Will we ever get married? Adopt a kid, or kids? Where would we live?

And then it hits me: there is a serious risk of me dying tomorrow. If Sofia and I are caught in IOI, they'll kill us on sight.

I'm not gonna think about that right now.

I walk back out of my room and into the common room. Sammy is sitting on the couch, flipping channels on the OASIS-fed TV. "Dude, have you seen the newsfeeds? They're all going insane!"

"I figured," I say, plopping onto the couch next to him. "The usual stuff?"

"Wondering whether it's a hoax, people crying, people's avatars committing suicide, et cetera," Sammy confirms. "I'm not really interested in all that though, but the Daishow is playing  _Voltron: Defender of the Universe_  right now, so I'm just flipping back and forth."

"Is that an anime?"

"Yeah. Honestly, it's pretty bad, but in a hilarious way! It's a cool concept, though." He switches the channel over to Shoto's personal channel that he used to share with Daito, which is playing a really bad-quality anime.

"Wait, didn't they reboot that in the 2010s?"

Sammy sighs. "Oh, I've tried watching the reboot. It's absolute shit."

"Could it be any more shit than the original?" I laugh. "I mean, it's the 2010s! Some good stuff came out of that decade. A lot of people like that show too... I think I might watch it."

"Do whatever you want, man," Sammy shrugs.

"What're you guys talking about?" Riley walks into the room just then. "Oh my god, you're watching VDU? VLD is so much better!"

"You're lying," Sammy gasps, "you actually watch that?"

"What in the hell..." I whisper, and they ignore me. They just continued arguing.

At the end of her rant about the reboot, Riley sighs and looks at me. "You need to watch VLD.  _Voltron: Legendary Defender_. You're 2010s trash anyway."

I shrug. "Okay then."

"Um, hey?" I hear Sofia's voice from the doorway. "Is this about an anime? I swear, you two are insane."

"Actually, VLD is a cartoon," Riley corrects. "VDU is an anime."

"Oh, whatever, I don't know." she laughs, and I just about die inside. I'm in love, that's for sure.

"Anyway, you guys," Riley begins, taking a deep breath. "I told you guys I would tell you what happened, so I guess I'll do that now."

"I was with you guys, obviously. And then my brother called me. I was at my Gran's house, but he was at my parents' house. He told me that IOI employees had just broken into our house and that he was hiding in a closet. He wasn't sure what happened. I obviously called the police, and I went with them back to my house. My brother was still in the closet, but my parents had been taken to an indenturement center and forced to give them information about me and about what GSS is doing. I didn't tell them any of that, obviously, so they couldn't tell them anything, so..." she chokes up for a second, then she says, "IOI murdered my parents."

Sofia gasps. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't your fault," Riley snaps, "don't say sorry." Then she realizes how that sounded. "I didn't mean it to sound like that."

"It's okay," Sofia says. "Is there more to the story?"

"Yeah, there is," she swallows, then continues. "But IOI had some really persuasive lawyers, so they convinced the police that it was all an accident! I tried really hard to convince them, but they wouldn't believe me. I even got my brother to try and tell them, but they didn't listen to him either!" At this point, she's practically screaming. "I hate IOI. I hate the world!"

She takes a deep breath. "I was gone for the rest of the week because of that, and because of, well... I felt like shit and didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't ever want to wake up. I was really depressed. But then my phone got the notification that Ae zeroed out, so I knew something was up. And you know the rest."

There's a silence, and it's deafening. I can't think of anything to say but "I'm sorry", but she said not to say that, so I don't.

"IOI is the worst thing on the face of the earth," Sofia says after a moment. "It's the worst thing in the history of the human race! But you know what? We're gonna stop them. For your parents, and everyone else that died by their hand."

"And you know what?" I say, speaking from instinct. "I never thought I'd say this, but fuck the police! They know what IOI has done, and they still didn't listen to you! I say, don't listen to anyone that tells you you're wrong when you know you're right."

"We're not just kids," Sammy says. "We're not just a band. We are  _warriors_! We're going to save lives by stopping IOI!"

"Thanks, guys," Riley smiles. "I needed that."


	17. SIXTEEN

"LOOK ALIVE, SUNSHINE!"

I shoot out of bed to see Wade standing in my doorway with a bullhorn. "What the actual  _hell_  are you doing?"

"UP AND AT 'EM! GO GET THOSE IOI MOTHERFUCKERS!" Wade shouted into his bullhorn.

"Can you not do that at"—I look at my watch—"eight AM?"

Wade laughed really loudly and switched off his bullhorn. "I'm just messing with you! But really, we do have to get ready for today."

"Oh damn," I realize, "that's today, isn't it? Can it not be today?" I yawn.

"Oh come on," Wade complains, "We can't procrastinate anymore."

I flop back onto my bed. "Okay then," I sigh.

"Cool. Meet us in the common room." He steps back out of my room and closes the door behind me.

I don't have to change my clothes, because I hadn't brought anything other than my OASIS gear. So I just walk out into the common room.

No one else was out there, so I just sat down on the couch. I heard Wade yelling into his bullhorn, and then I heard Riley screaming back at him, almost unintelligibly due to her accent. It was very entertaining.

Then, a few minutes later, all four of us half-asleep teenagers were sitting on the couch.

The High Five were there too. I recognized them all, of course. Just because I wasn't a gunter back in '45 didn't mean I didn't watch the newsfeeds. Art3mis, or Samantha, and Aech were both heavyset girls, and Shoto, or Akihide, was a young Japanese boy.

We all sat down to discuss the plan of action. Wade pulls up a holographic map of IOI headquarters on the table in front of us, which I didn't know it could do. He takes out a pen-looking thing, and begins to draw a path through the map by pressing a button on the pen, which I also didn't know was a thing. "So Val and Sofia," he begins, "you're going to put on some Sixer uniforms that I managed to snag from the black market-"

"You need to stop shopping on the black market," Samantha comments.

"I know," he smirks at her. "Anyway, you'll wear those and use the identity confirmations that come with them. You'll get in through the back door here," he points with the pen. "I hacked into those to give you top security clearance, so hopefully you can get into Smith's office--which is here--without making too much of a mess," he draws a line from the door up the elevator shaft to the forty-third floor, and then down a hallway to the office. "Sofia, you know the most about computers, and Val, you know the most about combat, so Sofia will transfer the OASIS and Val will stand guard.

"Riley and Sammy, you'll have the same uniforms with the same amount of clearance, but you'll go down instead of up," he draws another line, "to the third basement down, then you take a left and two rights, then you'll hit the surveillance room. Sammy, you'll do the hacking and looping, Riley, you'll guard. And you'll all be communicating with some earpieces. They're encrypted, so IOI can't listen in."

"And you're sure all of this is legal?" Sammy asks worriedly.

"What IOI is doing definitely isn't," Aech replies. I noticed the difference between her real voice and the one that she has in the OASIS and realized that she also uses a voice mod.

Samantha nods. "And even if this isn't legal, at least it's ethical. We're taking back what's rightfully ours."

"And they should all be put in jail anyway," Akihide says, "for what they did three years ago."

"Hey, you're not wrong," I comment.

"Anyway guys," Wade continues, "your uniforms and earpieces are in that box on the kitchen island. Go change and then we'll leave."

"How are we getting there, exactly?" Riley asks.

"We're gonna drop you off in the back alley of the building in my RV," Aech answered.

"The one that you and Wade met in?" I ask her.

"What other RV do you think I'm talking about, man?" Aech laughs.

Then we all go to get changed. The Sixer uniform is a tight bodysuit that resembles a haptic bootsuit, which I assume that it is. They all have their own rigs, so it makes sense that they'd have haptics too. In the right sleeve near the wrist, there's a metal bit that I assume contains the identification and security clearance, and right below my collarbone is the IOI logo and the number  _673491_. There's also a hat, similar to the ones worn by the military, with a large IOI logo on the front. I tie my hair back in a bun, put the hat on, and then walk back out into the common room.

Sammy looks extremely uncomfortable. He probably isn't used to such tight-fitting clothing. It's the same with Riley.

All I'm gonna say about Sofia is that she is beautiful. The outfit is a bit weird-looking, but she makes it work, very well. But she still stands shyly, and...  _holy actual shit I'm in love._ She looks at me and grins, blushing. I really hope she's thinking the same about me.

I shake my head in an attempt to clear it and say to the group: "Alright gang, let's do this!"

And then, we're in Aech's RV, driving to IOI HQ. We're all sitting in the small booth behind the driver's seat in silence, in anticipation.

I feel Sofia place a hand on my thigh. I take her hand and lace our fingers together. I look into her eyes and try to send her a look that says  _We're gonna get through this together._  She smiles back at me, and my heart melts.

"Get a room," Riley whispers to us. There's a moment of silence, and then we all burst into laughter.

And then, the car stops. We're in an alley between two insanely tall buildings, which I know are two of the three skyscrapers that make up the IOI building. The office we need to get to is near the top of the central tower, which we're standing right next to.

"Alrighty then," Aech says as the car stops. "This is your stop."

"Thanks, Aech," I say.

She grins. "No problem, mi amiga."

Then we all get out of the car. We wave at Aech, then she pulls the RV out of the alley and drives away.

I look up to try and see the top of the buildings, but they disappear into the gray clouds of pollution above us. The surface is entirely mirrored, just like the surface of IOI-1.

"Well, this is it," Sofia says to all of us.

"Hey guys," Sammy said softly, "I'm kinda scared."

I say "same", Sofia says "me too", and Riley says "ditto", all simultaneously.

Riley sighed. "I know it's kind of depressing, but I suppose it has to be said... if we don't make it out of here, it's been awesome playing with you guys."

"Don't say that," I start.

Sofia puts a hand on my shoulder. "It needs to be said, Val. I know you don't like that, but it's possible that we won't make it out."

"But we shouldn't be thinking like that!" I argue. "Look, a positive outlook can make or break a mission, or a show, or even just a day. We can't just say 'it's possible that we might die so we have to say goodbye like we'll never see each other again.'"

"Can we say goodbye for now then?" Sammy asks, still quietly.

I sigh. "Okay, that makes sense."

"This band has made my life so much better," Sofia says. "It helped me face my fear, and I met you guys, which I'm really thankful for."

"Let me just say," Sammy begins, "y'all are awesome. You're the best friends I've ever had. You've always been there for me, even if you do some stupid shit sometimes."

"I've had more fun than I could have ever imagined in this band," Riley said. "Also, I got to play drums, which is awesome. But you guys are more important, obviously."

"Thank you guys so much," I say. "Without you, I'd be completely alone in life, and I don't know if I could get by. Just... thanks for being here."

A moment passes, then I hear a loud  _"Awwww!"_  in my left ear. I realize that it's Wade, and our comms have been on this whole time.

 _"You guys are so cute!"_  Wade says.  _"Reminds me of us after the contest."_

 _"Wade, they need to focus,"_ I hear Akihide say.

"Dude, you scared me!" Sofia laughs.

 _"That was my goal,"_  Wade says, and I can almost see him smirking deviously.  _"Anyway, you should probably go in now."_

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," Riley jokes.

 _"You should probably go in your separate pairs at different times,"_  Samantha's voice tells us.  _"Four Sixers going in at once will probably look suspicious. Val and Riley should go in first."_

"Roger that," I answer. Then I look at Riley and Sammy and smile. "See you on the other side."

I hold my wrist with the metal piece up to the small scanner next to the door. The light on it turns green, and the door unlocks. And then we go in.

The room we walk into is very similar to my school's cafeteria. There are long tables filling the room, with bench seats attached to them. The room is also swarming with Sixers (their real-life counterparts) who are eating. One thing about it that's really unsettling though is that it's completely silent. No one is talking, no one's whispering, no one's making noise of any kind. It's almost disturbing, because of the number of people in the room.

 _"What are you guys seeing?"_ Wade asks in my ear.

I try to whisper as quietly as I can when I tell him "We're in some sort of cafeteria, and they're all quiet. I can't talk much."

 _"Oh okay,"_  he replies.  _"Anyway, do you see a door in the far left corner of the room? You're gonna go through it. But don't look suspicious."_

We do as he says, maneuvering through the tables and past the Sixers to get to the door. I hold my metal identification chip under another scanner, and we go through the door.

"We're through," Sofia tells Wade. I realize I can hear her in my ear as well.

_"Okay, now you're gonna walk straight down that hallway until you hit a right turn, and you're gonna take it."_

We follow the hallway. All of the doors we pass are identical, and the walls are a stark white, lit by fluorescent lights on the ceiling. We turn right when we get to the break in the hallway, and see six elevators surrounding us.

"So now we get into one of the elevators and go to the forty-third floor?" I ask quietly.

_"Yup."_

So we do. The elevator ride is long and boring, and there's no music. I really wish there was music; it helps calm me down when I'm stressed. And let me tell you, I am  _stressed_  right now.

And then the doors open. I see a room full of cubicles, each one with a high-tech OASIS rig in it.

"Okay Z, walk us through," I whisper.

_"You're gonna go straight to the opposite side of the room, where there are five sets of double-doors. Go into the second one to the left, that's Smith's. He should be at lunch right now."_

The hallways are only wide enough for one person to walk through, so we walk single-file. Sofia goes first, and I follow her. She ends up walking a lot faster than me, but I don't try to keep up with her. It might look suspicious.

Then, when we exit the hallway, I hear a gruff voice say "Sixer!"

I turn around and see a tall man in a suit in front of me. I realize that he's talking to me, so I reply, "Yes sir?"

"Aren't you supposed to be at your post?" His voice sounds familiar to me, but I can't pinpoint where I heard it before.

I glance towards the direction Sofia was headed in and see her entering Smith's office. I try not to sigh in relief. But then I realize I'm trapped. I decide to come up with a believable lie. "I'm new here. I'm not sure where my post is."

"Ah," he answers. "Let me see if I can find it in the database." He takes out a tablet, and I take the opportunity to look at his face. Then I realize where I'd heard his voice.

He looks just like Cyber_l0rd. This is Marcus Smith.


	18. SEVENTEEN

I try not to hyperventilate.  _I'm actually talking with my number one enemy, Marcus Smith, the CEO of IOI! I need to keep him from his office._ And then I realize he's looking for a rig post for an employee number that doesn't exist.  _Oh my god, I am dead meat._

 _"Val, where are you?"_ I hear Sofia ask in my earpiece.

"Alrighty, I've got your rig number right here," Smith says, catching my attention again. "Number 145."

 _Wait, what?_ "Oh, okay," I say, trying not to sound unprofessional.  _My number is actually in the system? And I have a post?_ "I'm sorry if I'm bothering you, but I'm not sure where that is."

I'm really scared that he'll tell me off, but he just smiles. "It's okay, kid, I'll show you. And I can give you a few tips on the way," he winks.

I was expecting him to be a lot meaner, like Sorrento was. But he's not. "Thank you, sir."

He starts to lead me through the hallways. I lag behind a bit until he's out of earshot if I whisper. "I got a bit caught up," I say softly. "I ran into Smith. He's leading me to my assigned rig. By the way, I have an assigned rig, apparently?"

 _"That was me, sorry,"_  Wade says, sheepishly.  _"In order to give you security clearance, I had to input the number on your uniform into the system and assign you a rig."_

 _"Keep stalling Smith,"_ Sofia says, slightly panicked.  _"I'm moving the new OASIS file now. It's gonna take a few minutes."_

"You know," Smith says over his shoulder. "As long as you can follow orders, you'll do great here. You have a bit of wiggle room to say things since you're not an indent, but you still have to do what you're told."

"Okay," I reply.

"The main people you need to know are Wade Watts, or Parzival, and his group, and Valerie Woods, or Aelien, and her band the Destiny Detonators."

In order to play dumb, I ask, "Wait, isn't Aelien a guy?"

"No one is who they seem on the OASIS," Smith says, looking over his shoulder at me. "You need to know them because they are our enemies. You just need to know who they are, so you if you're ordered to confront them, you can."

"Works for me," I reply.

"You know how to fight in the OASIS, right?"

"Yes," I answer. "I know how to fight in real life, too."

He chuckles. "That's a good skill to have. We might just have to attack Gregarious Simulation Systems' headquarters someday."

 _Oh jeez, I hope not_ , I think. "Well, you can count on me!"

 _"Okay, it's done,"_  I heard Sofia sigh in relief.

 _"Good, get out of there,"_ Wade replies.  _"Val, you too."_

Smith stops in front of a cubicle entrance. "Here's your stop, kid."

"Thanks, Mr. Smith," I tell him, smiling.

He smiles in return. "No problem. By the way, what's your name?"

I try not to let my smile dissolve.  _Oh shit._  "Doesn't it say that on my file?"

"Oh yeah," he says, looking at his tablet again. "No problem, Karen. Have a nice day!"

"You too!" I walk into the cubicle, wait until he's out of earshot, and whisper into my earpiece, "Karen? What the hell, Z? That's like, a suburban soccer mom name from the 2010s!"

 _"Sorry, it was the first name I could think of,"_ Wade replies, still sheepish.  _"Anyway, you should get out of there."_

"Actually," I began, "I had a different idea."

 _"Oh no,"_ Sofia said, sounding scared.  _"I know how your ideas are. Just get out of there!"_

"I think I'll be okay," I say, smirking. "See you guys on the other side."

And then, I take out my earpiece and put it in my pocket, which I discovered while I was putting on my uniform in my room.

Another thing I did while I was in my room was grab one of those flash drives that have a ton of storage on them and put that in my pocket. I take it out now and smile. Then I find the USB port on the side of my rig and plug the flash drive into it.

Then I grab the visor and gloves sitting on the rig chair and put them on. I sit down in the chair, still smiling.

Then, I enter the OASIS.

✨

I spawn on IOI-1, the Sixer home planet. I'm sitting at a desk in a cubicle that's identical to the one I'm in in real life.

I quickly pull up my basic settings and switch into third-person mode, and see that since I have the highest level of security clearance, my avatar looks just like it normally would, not like the default Sixer avatar. I'm still wearing the avatar uniform, though. I have to admit, Aelien looks good in it. Well, he looks good in anything, but still.

I switch back to first-person, and I engage. Then, I go to my personal library. Since I'm logged in as a Sixer, I get access to all of IOI's files that I have clearance to access... which is everything.

So I get to work. I start moving files to the flash drive, and it goes by really quickly. I end up copying the entire IOI database to my one flash drive, which is awesome. There's all of their top-secret operations, information about the company, their collective OASIS inventory (which was a lot), and lists of everyone who had ever worked for their company.

As I transfer things, I notice a lot of things too. Such as, they wanted the TARDIS, but I had won the auction before they did with $2.5 million in OASIS coin. What can I say? I really wanted that ship, and I had the money, so why not? Also, they had all of the records as to the real identities of a ton of OASIS users that had kept it secret, which was illegal as all hell, even if they were enemies of IOI.  _I wonder if they've tried to kill anyone else..._

Then, I get to the Halliday records. Everyone has kind of moved on from obsessing over James Halliday after the contest ended, but obviously, the 80s trends still lingered. But IOI still has a ton of records about his life, even obscure details like what day he'd been conceived on (gross), what the first movie he ever watched was, all of his medical records and the dates of every single doctor's appointment he'd ever had, and what his best childhood friends' names were, as well as a ton of information on them. They had info about Ogden Morrow, too, the same amount that they had about Halliday. One thing that I didn't mention (that you've probably heard already) was that about a year after the contest ended, Morrow died of a heart attack. It was totally random, no one expected it, but it happened. I still feel really bad for the High Five; they had to experience the loss of another one of their friends.

After about fifteen minutes, when all of the files have moved over, I successfully log out. I take off the visor and gloves, get out of the chair and put my earpiece in.

 _"...been gone too long, is she okay?"_ I hear Sammy ask.

 _"You know Val,"_ Sofia replies.  _"She always manages to get out of sticky situations. She's a fighter."_

 _"You really love her, don't you?"_ Riley sighs.

I can almost see Sofia smiling.  _"Yeah, I really do."_

"Guys, I'm right here," I say, laughing.

 _"Val!"_ they all shout simultaneously.

"I'm getting out of here now," I tell them, leaning out of the cubicle to see if the coast is clear. It is.

 _"Good!"_  I hear Wade's voice.  _"I know you don't like to follow orders, but that was a serious risk! Do you think you can get out on your own?"_

I smirk. "Of course I can. You know me, don't you?"

 _"What were you even doing?"_  he asks.

"Transferring the entire IOI database over to a flash drive," I tell him smugly.

 _"I should have known,"_ he says.  _"I mean, I needed some of that information so I would know what to remove from the OASIS copy, but the whole database?"_

"Again, you know me, don't you? I like to go the extra mile."

_"I shouldn't be complaining. I did the same thing."_

I make my way out of the building the same way I got in, with no issues. Aech's RV is in the alley, waiting for me.

Of course, my friends are very happy to see me. I am hugged very tightly by Sammy, who had apparently been very worried about me, and Riley, who said that she knew I'd get out okay the whole time.

Then there's Sofia. The look in her eyes is filled with so much relief and happiness that it makes me want to cry. And I almost do, before she runs up to me and does something that I was not expecting.

She kisses me.

Now, in the back of my head, a voice is telling me that it's not an appropriate time for a first kiss, but I completely ignored it. I freeze in shock for a split second, then I realize what's happening, and that I love it.

It only lasts for a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity. I'm not very good at writing about the romantic stuff, but let me tell you, this is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

When the kiss stops, I realize that my arms are around her, so I hug her. That lasts for a while because I genuinely never want to leave her arms.

"Okay y'all, get a room!" Sammy says, and we finally part, laughing.

"Shut up," I tell him, but I'm still smiling.

We get back to GSS HQ without much ado. We are greeted by a lot of businesspeople and employees who are all cheering for us, and I'm kind of overwhelmed, but I cheer with them anyway. I am so happy about our victories, I figure I can let loose a little.

My friends and I all stay up until two AM that night, listening to music and dancing badly, playing video games, and watching movies, the ones who know them quoting every line. Sofia and I's hands are clasped together the whole time, and we even dance together when  _Let's Dance_  comes on. It is our song, after all.

This is the best night of my life, I realize. This is the best state I've ever been in. Nothing could ever get better.


	19. EIGHTEEN

Wade starts working on the OASIS copy the next day. He works the whole day, never leaving his desk. After reading his book, that seems like something he'd do. He's really dedicated to the OASIS, seeing as his whole life has revolved around it for as long as he can remember. He has worked so hard to save his world, which has become home to him. It is  _his world_ in every aspect, including legally. So he works for a week straight.

Samantha, Aech, and Akihide have been struggling with the press at the same time. IOI's lawyers are still ruthless, despite the whole company collapsing for three years, but GSS is still winning, because even though we are slightly in the legal wrong, we're still in the ethical right, and IOI is in the wrong both ways. And they also committed several murders and have stolen the entirety of the OASIS, which is a pretty big deal.

As for the Detonators and I, we're working on a new album. According to Riley, "the lyrics are just writing themselves," and according to yours truly, the music has also been flowing along with the lyrics. We're not telling you what it's called, of course. You'll just have to wait and see. One thing I will say is this: there are a few more love songs and a lot more bass lines.

✨

I think that I might actually publish this and reveal my identity to the world. I've been questioning whether to use my real name or not, but I think I will, because I think I'm ready to start being myself (and because I don't want to go back and change all of the Val's). I asked the others if they want me to publish it, and they all agree. We're all tired of secrets.

So, we decide to play a show. A real one, as ourselves.

We book a stadium in Columbus that has been practically disused for years now and tell them that the Destiny Detonators want to play there. They're confused for a second until we offer them a couple grand in OASIS coin. Then they accept the offer.

The next day, it appears on the newsfeeds that apparently, IOI's database has been completely wiped. It's empty. Smith appears on one of the channels, but he says he doesn't know who to blame and that it was probably a glitch. Wade gives me a dirty look at that, and I smirk back at him knowingly.

✨

The OASIS 2.0 is unveiled the next month. All of the code, accounts, coin, EXP, and objects transfer over to the new OASIS from the old one, which people are very happy about, and the ones that self-zeroed are really angry. But oh well, it's not our fault. And after all of the code transfers, Wade shuts down the old one. But it doesn't mean much. We still have everything we need.

Then, we go back to the Studio and make a broadcast. We welcome everyone to the OASIS 2.0, then I gear up to make an even bigger announcement.

"I figure it's time to tell you all something that we've been hiding forever. The first thing I wanted to say, before I tell you that, is that I'm writing a book! I've been working on it for the past couple of months, and it's almost finished! It'll be a few years before I publish it, but you'll get it eventually, I promise. But the thing I wanted to tell you concerns the name that'll be printed on the cover. My real name is Valerie Woods, and yes, I'm female. Don't think of me differently, please, I'm still the same old Ae. But anyways, the book will clear up any questions you have about what's happened over the past couple of months, from the point of view of yours truly. And my friends here would also like to tell you who they are and a bit about themselves, so I'll let them!"

"Hi. I'm 9lives, but my real name is Sammy Wong. I love drawing and animation, especially anime, and Texas is the best state, no arguments."

"Hey there, you all know me as Zer0, but I'm actually called Riley. Not telling you my last name, sorry. I'm British and proud, and I like 70s music."

"Um... my username is Illvsion, and my real name is Sofia Rodriguez. I like video games, and history, and uh, Val Woods is the best person I've ever met."

"Why thank you, Sofia, and I'll have everyone know that I feel the same about you. But anyways! We'll also be playing a show in real life soon! October 25th in the Columbus Arena. Tickets are on sale right now, so go grab them right now! We should probably go now, so we'll have to say goodbye. But in honor of the new OASIS, here's a new song we've been working on. It's called  _World's Destiny_."

So then we play it. It's a bit ambitious for us, one of the main reasons being that I switched off my voice mod and we had to raise the pitch of the song. The second thing was that there's a rap verse, vocalized by Sammy. We've never had rap in our music before, unless we were covering a Linkin Park song, and even then, I would always do the rapping and the singing when I could. But Sammy is really enjoying himself and putting everything he has into those words. Another thing that's happening is that I have a guitar solo. An actual solo! I've never done one in front of an audience before, but here I am, shredding in front of most of the OASIS! The last different thing is probably the lyrics. We've never based lyrics off of real events before, but this one is pretty closely tied to the revenge we got on IOI and how close we are to each other and the OASIS. And I wrote it! Well, most of it. Riley checked up on my lyrics a bit, but other than that, it was all me.

And then we end the broadcast. The last thing I do before logging off is I change Aelien's look a bit. First, I switch my gender to female, then I change my avatar's face to look more like mine, then I change my height to be 5'3" like I am in real life. Then I log out.

✨

I've been living in GSS HQ for about a month now, and I've customized my room as much as I possibly can. I have all of the posters that were in my old room, I restored my old CD and DVD collections and have them all on shelves now, and my bed has a galaxy comforter on it and several nerd-themed pillows. Another cool thing is that Riley lives here too now! Obviously, the reason behind it is terrible, but it's cool to have her here. We play music together a lot and we binge-watched  _Voltron: Legendary Defender_ , which was awesome. I didn't like the last season, though. But oh well!

One thing I don't like is that Sofia had to go home. She loves her family, I'll give her that. She and I will meet up in the OASIS every day, of course, and we'll videochat normally, but it still won't be the same as having her here, and I miss her a lot. Especially since (we decided this a few days before she left) she's my girlfriend now. Sammy had to go home too, and I really miss him too. One thing that I learned from Sammy that was very interesting was that apparently, he'd had a crush on me for a very long time when he thought I was a guy. That explains why he was disappointed when he found out I wasn't, he's as gay as can be.

But we do meet up again a month later for our show in Columbus. Seeing them all again is absolutely amazing, and playing music in real life is going to be amazing.

I played guitar in real life for a bit before the show, just to get the hang of doing it without haptic gloves and with an actual object in my hands. It took me a bit, but once I got used to it, it was just like playing in the OASIS. The others did the same thing.

The show goes really well. Seeing all of our fans in real life is a really amazing experience. It really shows that under all of the avatars, EXP, and magic of the OASIS, we're all human, just like everyone else. But we're all unique, too. No two humans are the same, and I love that.

We only play one cover during the show, and it's of  _Souk Eye_  by Gorillaz. I feel like that song sums up the occurrences of the past few months perfectly. The rest of the songs we play are our own, including  _World's Destiny, Waterfell,_ and  _THE VOID_ , which we dedicate to Art3mis. She thanks us for that later.

Then we say goodbye and go back to GSS. We have another awesome night of staying up until two AM just being friends, which is absolutely wonderful.

Who knew that this giant fight for control would turn out so well?


	20. EPILOGUE

✨ _Two years later_ ✨

I stand at the base of a set of escalators at the airport. The air traffic has increased a lot since bands have actually started touring in real life again, which we sparked. Of course, I'm wearing a black sweatshirt with my hood up and sunglasses so I don't get spotted and the paparazzi don't attack me. There's a Queen tribute band (fronted by one of the actual band's singers, Adam Lambert) playing at the Arena tonight, which I plan to see. But there is one person I would really like to take with me, who I'm hoping to see now.

And then I see her, and it feels just like the first time. Black hair cascading over her shoulders, chocolate brown eyes that I still drown in every time I see them, and the same shy smile.

Sofia spots me and grins, then runs down the escalator towards me. I run to her too, and I jump up to wrap my arms around her neck. She's gotten taller, but I stayed the same. She puts her arms around my waist and lifts me off my feet, pulling me closer.

She puts me back on my feet, and I smile at her, drowning in her eyes again. "Hey, V," I say, laughing.

"What's up, Ae?" she replies, smiling back at me. "I missed you."

"Oh, you don't even know," I agree. "Come on, let's go to the arena!"

✨

Sofia and I stomp our feet and clap in time with the band, singing along with every word of the song.

_"We will, we will, rock you!"_

Queen is Sofia's favorite band, and I love seeing her so happy, singing along with the lyrics. And of course, once the guitars start going, I'm headbanging into oblivion.

I actually have a plan for tonight, and it involves making her as happy as humanly possible. This show was a must, and so is spending most of the night in the common room with the gang, just hanging out. And then, I'm going to take her onto the roof and do something that I've been planning for about a year now.

✨

When the concert is over, Sofia buys a t-shirt and we walk out of the arena. But instead of going to our personal self-driving car, I tell it to go back to GSS on its own and we walk back through the city. We both love walking in the city, and just talking and laughing like we always do, and holding hands the whole time. I'm still just as in love with her as I always have been, and just by the look in her eyes and the way her voice sounds when she talks to me, I know she is too.

We get back to the GSS building and are greeted by the usual crowd of businesspeople, receptionists, and staff. On our way to the forty-third floor, the elevator plays  _I Ran (So Far Away)_  by A Flock of Seagulls, which is one of Sofia's favorite songs.

And then we're in the room that has become my home over this past couple of years. Surround-sound speakers that had blasted my favorite songs, the couch that I'd played shitty card games with my friends on, the kitchen that I'd only ever made Ramen noodles and brownies in but I'm still very familiar with. And of course, the people in it. Riley and I have become very close (not as close as Sofia and I, but pretty close), and of course, there's Sammy, who has been here for about a week already and I've caught up with a lot.

Sofia receives huge hugs from each of our friends, as well as Wade, Samantha, Aech, and Akihide, who have become integral parts of our friend group. Then we commence our night of being dumbasses together. We play Cards Against Humanity and laugh our asses off, then we dance to 80s, 90s, and 2000s music (including  _Let's Dance_ , which Sofia and I enjoy a lot), then we watch a series of bad movies and laugh at how terrible they are. Then, when Sammy passes out on the couch, everyone decides to call it a night.

But of course, I have a different plan. I take Sofia up to the highest balcony of the building, which is above the pollution layer, where we can see the stars. We lean against the railing on the edge and look up, pointing out all the constellations we know.

And then, it's the right time. The item in my pocket is almost killing me, urging me to pull it out and ask the question. But I can't help being a bit scared.  _What if something goes wrong..._

And then she looks at me, and I see those same chocolate eyes I fell in love with three years ago, and all of my fear disappears.

Instinctually, without breaking eye contact, I slowly bend down onto one knee. I see her face break out into the brightest smile I've ever seen. I pull the small box out of my pocket, open it, and finally ask the question that has been in my head for months:

"Will you marry me?"

Sofia's eyes fill, and she's still grinning. Then, catching me off guard, she says, "Darn it!"

I'm confused. "Wait, what?"

She laughs and says, "I wanted to propose first! You dumbass, of course, I'll marry you."

Then I jump up off the ground and pull her into my arms. At that moment, I am so filled with love for her that I can't think of anything else.

Pressing my lips to hers, the whole world falls away. It's just me and her, Val and Sofia, Ae and V—No, scratch that last one. There's no secrets, no virtual reality, no avatars, no distance between us anymore.

It's then that I realize how much I appreciate the world we live in. Even though most everything has gone to shit, we still have each other. There's no need to escape anymore.


End file.
